French journalist Vanessa Dougnac, a prominent correspondent on India and South Asia, died in Paris on November 2 at the age of 54. She had spent 25 years in India, reporting for La Croix, Le Point, Le Soir and Le Temps before the Indian government barred her from the country in February 2024. She died of cancer, according to the supplied report.
Dougnac’s work included long-form reporting and extended stays in the places she covered. Her assignments took her among Maoist guerrillas in the forests of Chhattisgarh, Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers and Kashmiri independence activists.
She recounted her years of reporting in India in Jungles, published in November 2025. The book described some of her major journalistic journeys, including an overland trip from Delhi to Paris by scooter as a student and a several-week horseback trek across the Himalayan highlands to follow Nyilza Wangmo, a princess from the Mustang kingdom near Nepal and Tibet.
Sources: Le Monde International.