Swapna has been a journalist for more than 15 years, has won numerous awards, and covered major news events including the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984.

After two years with the Illustrated Weekly of India, the flagship of the Times of India group, she spent 10 years at Sunday Mail, and as special correspondent reporting several news breaks which led to the Prabha Dutt award for Investigative Journalism in 1988-89. Her research-based articles on human development and international relations won her a prestigious 1991 Dag Hammarskjold fellowship which is annually given to three journalists from the Third World, only one from Asia. This provided her an opportunity to report on the economic and political significance of globalisation, and on international power play including the US attack on Iraq, while based in the United Nations headquarters in New York.

Swapna's interest in human development and the impact of social, economic and political changes on nation building, the socio-economic and cultural patterns in different societies, development issues and the role of women as agents of social change added a new dimension to her reportage. As the first recipient of the South Asia Media Fellowship in the year 2000, Swapna used this opportunity to report on developmental concerns in Bangladesh and that country's success in education and population.

In her writings for the Women's Feature Service, Swapna focuses on the role of minority groups in development, politics, education and other development concerns from a gender perspective.

As a visiting faculty member of the Institute for Studies in Industrial Development, a research and policy-making institution, she also contributes to discussion papers prepared for MPs on certain issues like gender and politics, education and population.

Swapna's fellowship to Australia is funded by the Australia-India Council (AIC).