Analysis of the day's national and international stories
Ritula Shah
Ritula Shah is one of Radio 4's most versatile presenters.
Ritula ignored her father's advice to become a lawyer, instead, Ritula graduated in history from Warwick University in 1988. Soon afterwards, she joined BBC Radio in Birmingham and then became a Midlands production trainee. The scheme included a spell in regional TV news and she never looked back. In 1991 she joined the Today programme as a researcher. Her time on Today took in the turbulent Major years and the arrival of Tony Blair in Downing Street. Seven years and many nightshifts later, Ritula made the short journey across London to Bush House and the World Service, where she became one of the presenters of the daily news programme The World Today.
Adapting to the news agenda at Bush House was like learning a new language -- the diet of domestic politIcs that was the staple of the Today programme had to make way for news and politics from all over the world. Ritula found herself presenting the World Today from a variety of unlikely locations, including a building site at the back of a mosque in Tehran, in a piano bar in New York and under a table on a rooftop in Moscow (the only place where the equipment was protected from the snow!)
Now Ritula's returned to Radio 4 and the World Tonight. She still makes documentaries and presents programmes for the World Service -- including the daily magazine programme Outlook but in many ways, it feels like a homecoming.
Ritula's also a regular presenter of Saturday PM and Woman's Hour.
