Nikhil Pahwa founded MediaNama on 27 June 2008, months after leaving contentSutra, the India edition of ContentNext, where he had been editor and which was later folded into a Guardian Media Group acquisition. He started it as a rival on the same beat, covering the business of Indian digital media, and over time shifted the focus toward technology policy. The publication is owned by Mixed Bag Media Pvt Ltd, registered at Civil Lines in Delhi, and remains independent of any larger media group. Pahwa is also a public advocate: he led the SaveTheInternet.in net neutrality campaign in 2015, which contributed to the shutdown of Facebook's Free Basics in India, and co-founded the Internet Freedom Foundation in 2016, resigning from it in 2018. The masthead runs a daily newsletter, a research arm and a programme of policy roundtables attended by officials, lawyers and parliamentarians. Today, MediaNama is mainly focused on Indian technology policy, covering platform regulation, privacy and the data protection rules, content takedowns and censorship, surveillance, competition and e-commerce policy, alongside earnings coverage of Indian internet companies, from their base in New Delhi, India. One interesting fact: readers can commission its journalism directly. The site carries a standing form inviting the public to ask the newsroom to file a Right to Information request on their behalf, sitting in the same menu as its anonymous tip line.