Tarun Tejpal (born 15 March 1963) is an Indian journalist, publisher, novelist, entrepreneur and founder editor of Tehelka magazine.

Tejpal in several media interviews declared the primary impulse of Tehelka would be editorial and not commercial, and it would aim to bring back the aggressive public interest journalism of the 1980s which had been misplaced in the fashion, food and cinema excitements of the 1990s.

[3] Tehelka's landmark stories include the Gujarat killings, Dr Binayak Sen, police encounters in the north-east, coal and 2G scams, the Ishrat Jahan and Tulsi Prajapati murders, the organising of riots by rump groups, an exposé on Zaheera Sheikh (witness of the Best Bakery case); as well as its persuasive reportage on the oppressed and disadvantaged sections of India – Dalits, tribals, poor and other minorities, victims of buccaneering development.

[citation needed] Tejpal created and spearheaded THiNK, an acclaimed 3-day festival of ideas featuring global frontline thinkers in science, tech, politics, economics and the arts.

[14] International luminaries who spoke at THiNK included Robert De Niro, V S Naipaul, Garry Kasparov, Erica Jong, James Randi, George Schaller, and Amitabh Bachchan.

Tejpal's debut novel The Alchemy of Desire (2006), won Le Prix Mille Pages for Best Foreign Literary Fiction.

The book also gained substantial attention for the rare and powerful praise it garnered from Nobel laureate Sir V S Naipaul, who wrote “at last — a new and brilliantly original novel from India.” Khushwant Singh in his review wrote, “The Alchemy of Desire puts Tarun Tejpal in the front rank of Indian novelists.

It is a novel that must be read.’ [9] Writing of the book, Le Figaro said “This Indian masterpiece is like a voyage down the Ganges, long and infinitely pleasurable; the only thing that worries you is getting to the end too soon.”[9] A foiled assassination bid on Tejpal in 2001, and the arrest of five contract killers became the seed of Tejpal's second literary novel, the critically acclaimed.

"Tracking the debris of broken lives and screwball dreams, frantic fantasies and desperate schemes, Mercy does what only a handful of books in every age do: reveal the immorality of man-made moralities.

[1] Police in the state of Goa, where the incident took place, filed a First Information Report (FIR) which listed charges, including rape, against him.

"The IO has in some cases, such as the CCTV footage of the first floor of block 7 of the Grand Hyatt, entirely destroyed the evidence...", the verdict stated.