Prannoy Lal Roy (born 15 October 1949) is an Indian economist, chartered accountant, psephologist, journalist and author.

[3] His paternal grandfather was Paresh Lal Roy, a traffic superintendent and an amateur boxer, known as the "father of Indian boxing" for having popularised the sport in the country.

[7] Prannoy had received a Haileybury and Imperial Service College scholarship to acquire the A-level higher secondary certificate.

[3] In the 1980s, he began collaborating with the Oxford political scientist David Butler and Indian economist Ashok Lahiri in an effort to mainstream the field of psephology in India.

[21] In the previous year, the incumbent director general of Doordarshan had also quit the public broadcaster and jointed its multinational rival, the Star network.

These developments created animosity in the government and a parliamentary committee was set up to scrutinise the activities of the former director general which alleged that there were "irregularities" in the contracts with NDTV.

[22][23] The cases went on for several years in the form of a protracted conflict,[14] until a court judgement in 2013 which acquitted all the accused of the charges, stating that there was no evidence of any wrongdoing.

[24] NDTV started facing government pressure through litigations and intimidation of advertisers on the network after Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister in 2014.

[28] The government attempted to ban the Hindi news channel NDTV India in 2016 and retracted following backlash including cross media protests from journalists.

[29][30] In 2017, the residence of the Roys at Greater Kailash, Delhi were raided by the CBI,[28] after a NDTV journalist had questioned statements made by a ruling party spokesperson.

[28] In 2019, Prannoy Roy collaborated with the psephologist Dorab Sopariwala and published a book called The Verdict: Decoding India’s Elections.

[39] His academic awards include the Leverhulme Trust (UK) Fellowship, Queen Mary Prize for results at BSc and an OPOS Scholarship at the Doon School to study at Haileybury College.

He won the Red Ink award by Mumbai Press Club for lifetime achievement for his consistent and pioneering contribution to news television and his service to journalism in 2015.