Rana Ayyub is an Indian investigative journalist and a Global Opinions columnist at The Washington Post. Over a nineteen-year career, she has worked as a reporter, editor, and columnist with leading publications in India and internationally. Her writing has appeared in TIME, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, and Foreign Policy, and she has been featured on the cover of The New Yorker.
Rana has reported extensively on majoritarian politics and violence, extrajudicial killings by the state, Islamophobia, and communalism. She is the author of the international bestseller Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover-Up.
Her work focuses on amplifying the voices of the marginalised and oppressed, combating misinformation, and defending democratic values. For this reporting, she has faced sustained persecution by the Indian government, including multiple criminal cases and the freezing of her bank accounts, and is currently facing trial in India. In 2025, both Canadian and Indian agencies investigated explicit death threats to her life.
Rana’s journalism has received wide international recognition. She is a recipient of the Sanskriti Award for Integrity and Excellence in Journalism, conferred by the former President of India. In 2017, she won the Global Shining Light Award for Investigative Journalism, and in 2018, she was named the Most Resilient Global Journalist at the Peace Palace in The Hague. In 2019, TIME magazine listed her among ten journalists worldwide facing the greatest threats to their lives. In 2018, the United Nations appointed six Special Rapporteurs to urge the Indian government to protect her safety—the first such intervention for an individual case in India.
In 2020, she received the McGill Medal for Journalistic Courage. In 2021, she was awarded the Excellence in Journalism and International Human Rights Award by the University of Texas. In 2022, she received the Overseas Press Club Award for her incisive commentary on India, followed by the John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award, the highest honour conferred by the Press Club of the United States. In 2024, the Canadian Free Press Association named her Journalist of the Year for her journalism and her advocacy for press freedom.
She lives in Mumbai with her family.