Teesta Setalvad is a Mumbai based Indian Civil Rights Activist, Journalist and also Educationist. She had her graduation with a degree in Philosophy from the Bombay University in 1983 and started her career as a journalist. She at that time used to report for the Mumbai editions of The Daily (India), The Indian Express Newspapers and then for the Busines India magazine. It was the communal carnage in the Business Capital of India, Mumbai that motivated her and along with her activist husband Javd Anand quit full-time journalism in 1993 to start a monthly magazine Communalism Combat. Teesta is an ethnic Gujarati and the daughter of Atul Setalvad, , a prominent Mumbai based lawyer, and Sita Setalvad, a rural crafts exponent. She and husband Javed have two children, Tamara and Jibran.
In 2007, she was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India for her role in "Public Affairs in Maharashatra". However, in the recent years her name has been most popularized during the post- Gujarat riot. In November 2004, she was accused of pressuring Zaheera Sheikh, the key witness in the Best Bakery case, to make certain statements, leading to the unprecedented transferral of the case outside Gujarat. In August 2005, a Supreme Court of India committee absolved her of the charges of inducement levelled against her by Zaheera.
Teesta Setalvad was accused by Zaheera, the victim of Best Bakery Case, that she is getting money from abroad and her organisation Sabrang & Communalism Combat are funded by Saudi money. She was also accused of being a Pakistani spy trying to tarnish the image of India aboard.
Members of Sabrang communication came to United States and accused it of not giving Christians Muslims religious freedoms and to allege the Indian state under the BJP regime as a place where minorities (Christians and Muslims) religious freedoms are under threat.
