A senior journalist with forty years of experience, she has worked with leading Indian newspapers and journals.
Her poetry has been translated into English, Hindi, Kannada, Bengali and Urdu and featured in various anthologies.
In 2004, she co-edited with Ajeet Cour an anthology of SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) poetry entitled Our Voices.
As a journalist, Dutt has taken a strong secularist line standing against fundamentalism and communalist violence.
She has written on issues ranging from terrorism in Punjab, the November 1984 massacre of the Sikhs, the Babri Masjid demolition and the Gujarat carnage.