Over a career spanning more than 50 years, Chopra held senior editorial and publishing roles at Penguin India, HarperCollins India, Bloomsbury India, and earlier at the Times of India. His work defined the landscape of non-fiction publishing in India, bringing to life books that shaped public discourse and national imagination.
Chopra was instrumental in building Penguin’s non-fiction list, commissioning works that became reference points in politics, economics, and society. As Publisher of Non-Fiction and Harper Business, he launched Harper Business, which became India’s leading business imprint. He worked closely with authors like APJ Abdul Kalam, whose India 2020 was born of Chopra’s vision, and Raghuram Rajan, whose I Do What I Do sold over 100,000 copies. At Bloomsbury India (2021–2024), he continued to nurture non-fiction, before returning to HarperCollins.
Colleagues recall Chopra as a perfectionist, often editing manuscripts by hand late into the night. He believed editing was about finding bugs and pushed his teams to aim higher, never settling for mediocrity. His eye for detail was legendary — whether correcting a single misplaced comma or insisting on precise usage of terms.