He has worked for more than 20 years for the dailies The Times of India and Amrita Bazar Patrika, and weeklies Sunday and Current. Nilanjan conducted research on forced migration and produced a well-acclaimed documentary, Home is a Distant Land, on Bengali refugee memories in collaboration with the Department of Sociology, University of Wollongong, Australia (2010). Having a keen interest in human rights, Dutta has also researched on the History of Civil Liberties Movement in India with a fellowship from the Department of Law, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London during 1995-96. He is an Honorary Research Associate of the Calcutta Research Group.