Photo credit: Courtesy of Steve Rochlin
On a crisp winter evening, Juleanna Glover opened her Kalorama home in Washington, DC for a toast that felt both intimate and quietly consequential. The occasion: Celebrating Indira Lakshmanan, newly announced by NPR and WBUR as the next co-host of Here & Now, the live midday news program that reaches some 500 NPR member stations nationwide. Boston will be her new base, but for one night, the center of gravity was unmistakably Washington.
The gathering had the relaxed elegance of a salon rather than a formal reception—friends, colleagues and longtime admirers mingling in rooms warmed by conversation and the shared pleasure of good news. Lakshmanan, gracious and visibly moved, was the rare guest of honor who seemed more interested in listening than holding court, even as the room buzzed with congratulations. Her appointment felt less like a career pivot than a natural continuation – a journalist stepping into a role that neatly gathers decades of reporting, editing, hosting and intellectual curiosity into a single daily conversation.
Christina Sevilla, Indira Lakshmanan, Juleanna Glover, Devan Tatlow
With more than 30 years in journalism, Lakshmanan brings a résumé that reads like a map of modern media. Most recently, she served as ideas and opinions editor at U.S. News & World Report, shaping debates and elevating voices at a moment when clarity and context feel increasingly scarce. Before that, she moved fluidly across platforms and continents, holding prominent editorial roles and appearing as a radio and television host for institutions that include The Associated Press, Bloomberg, The Boston Globe, National Geographic, and the Pulitzer Center. It’s a career marked not just by range, but by a consistent commitment to depth—an insistence on asking the next question, and then the one after that.
Jack Doll and Christina Sevilla
As the evening unfolded, the celebration took on a soundtrack. Wicked Game, the acoustic guitar duo of Christina Sevilla and Jack Doll, set up and gently shifted the mood from conversational to celebratory. Their setlist traced a familiar emotional arc, weaving through hits from the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s—songs that feel less like nostalgia than shared memory. At Lakshmanan’s request, they played the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” a choice that landed with a knowing smile. In this case, of course, she very much had.
Later, the tempo lifted. When the opening notes of The Black Keys’ “Lonely Boy” filled the room, restraint gave way to movement. Guests danced—some tentatively, others with abandon—momentarily blurring the lines between media luminaries and old friends at a house party. It was the kind of scene that doesn’t need staging – spontaneous, slightly imperfect, and all the better for it.
By the end of the night, the toast felt complete—not just a send-off to Boston or a congratulations on a prestigious new role, but a recognition of something more enduring. Journalism careers rarely unfold in neat chapters, yet Lakshmanan’s next act feels both earned and timely. As Here & Now continues to shape the national midday conversation, she arrives with the authority of experience and the curiosity of someone still eager to be surprised.
Attendees raising a toast to Indira included Al Hunt and Judy Woodruff, Dermot Tatlow, David Corn, John Hudson, Josh Rogin, Juliet Eilperin, Margaret Talev, Steve Rochlin, Adam Green, Akbar Ahmed, Nadia Bilbassy and Yemen Ambassador Abdulwahab Al-Hajrii.
Under soft lights and familiar songs, the mood was less about arrival than momentum. The sense lingered that this was not simply a celebration of where Indira Lakshmanan has been, but of the conversations—thoughtful, probing and humane—that she is about to bring to millions of listeners, right here and now.
