He has reported on agriculture, Left-wing extremism, and forests and wildlife from Vidarbha. A Senior Assistant Editor at The Indian Express, he is based in Nagpur. Deshpande is a recipient of the Statesman Award for Rural Reporting, Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award, Sanctuary Asia-RBS award for wildlife reporting. He was short-listed for the Kurt Schork Award for International Journalism in 2007 for his series of reports on Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh.