Chakravartty was born on 3 November 1913 in India's northeastern state of Assam.
[1] He graduated from the University of Calcutta and went on to study at Merton College, Oxford.
[2] Chakravarty taught history at Calcutta University in the 1930s before taking to journalism.
In 1959, he set up the India Press Agency and immediately broke the story on the alleged espionage activities of the then Prime Minister's personal assistant, M. O. Mathai.
Between 1975 and 1977 he played a key role in press freedom and with other senior journalists fought against Rajiv Gandhi's Anti-Defamation Bill and forced its withdrawal.