*** The Mumbai edition of The Hindu, launched with much fanfare five years ago, has run into serious turbulence with over two dozen staffers being asked to leave the 142-year-old organisation at less than a fortnight’s notice. The indicated last date is June 30. Almost all those whose resignations have been sought, orally, had been…
Tag Archives: N. Murali
‘The Hindu redesign was a mishmash, an eyesore’
The Spanish designer Mario Garcia (in picture, right), who redesigned The Hindu eight years ago before it was “abandoned” by Siddharth Vardarajan upon his appointment as editor, has opened a dialogue with the Madras-based paper now that the 2005 redesign has been restored following the return of the “family” to the helm. Garcia, who is reputed…
”The Hindu’ situation had become irremediable’
The “professional” editor may have been eased out by redesignating him; the services of the “professional” CEO may have been summarily terminated; and the front page of the paper may have returned to its past. But The Hindu saga is not over yet. After six board members on the 11-member board of Kasturi & Sons…
In a family-owned paper, only furniture is fixed
Nothing is what it appears to be in the thicker-than-water but funnier-than-fill-your-metaphor-here world of family-owned newspapers. Siddharth Varadarajan, installed as editor of The Hindu in a G.Kasturi-N.Ram putsch in 2011, ostensibly to professionalise the paper but allegedly to prevent Malini Parthasarathy from ascending the throne, has resigned dramatically via a Twitter announcement. “With The Hindu‘s…
When an owner passes, nothing else is news
The front page of the Tamil newspaper, Dina Thanthi (The Daily Telegraph), once India’s largest-read newspaper, the day after its proprietor, B. Sivanthi Adithyan, passed away in Madras at the age of 76. On the bottom-half of the page is a picture of Adithyan being decorated by the then President of India, Pratibha Patil. with…
Hindu’s longest serving editor G. Kasturi: RIP
sans serif records the demise of Gopalan Kasturi aka G. Kasturi, the longest-serving editor of The Hindu in Madras, early today. He was 87. Although he was the helmsman of a supposedly “orthodox, conservative” newspaper, Kasturi was renowned in the industry as a torchbearer, showing the way with his knowledge of fonts, photography and printing…
N. Ram to resign as The Hindu editor-in-chief
After a long and bitter battle with his brothers and cousins, Narasimhan Ram, the editor-in-chief of The Hindu, has finally called it a day. In a letter to the directors of Kasturi & Sons Limited (KSL), the holding company of the paper at 12.19 pm today, N. Ram, 66, has indicated that the time has…
N. Murali: ‘Hindu’ is run like a ‘banana republic’
N. Murali, the managing director of The Hindu, has retired after a 40-year career in the Madras-based, family owned newspaper. Below is the full text of his farewell letter to employees of the paper, in which he minces no words in describing the current phase of the paper, under the current editor-in-chief N. Ram, as…
Nirmala Lakshman: I didn’t step down, I resigned
This is the full text of Nirmala Lakshman‘s July 20 letter to the board of directors of Kasturi & Sons, the holding company of The Hindu, on why she can no longer continue as the joint editor of the paper, following the elevation of Delhi bureau chief Siddharth Varadarajan as the next editor of the…
Why N. Ravi quit as Hindu’s editor after 20 years
This is the full text of N. Ravi‘s July 20 letter to the board of directors of Kasturi & Sons, the holding company of The Hindu, on why he can no longer continue as the editor of the paper, following the elevation of Delhi bureau chief Siddharth Varadarajan as the next editor of the paper.…
Malini Parthasarathy quits as Hindu exec editor
The Hindu boardroom strife—over the appointment of a non-family professional as editor—has claimed its first victim in the newsroom. Malini Parthasarathy, who would have become the first woman editor of a broadsheet English newspaper had the traditional succession plan been implemented, has resigned as executive editor of the paper. This, a day after the Supreme…
The curious case of N.Ram, DMK and Jayalalitha
ARVIND SWAMINATHAN writes from Madras: If a picture conveys a thousand words, the picture above should convey a couple of them, and then some more. At left is N. Ram, the editor-in-chief of The Hindu, currently embroiled in a major row with his brothers N.Murali and N. Ravi (and their cousins Malini Parthasarathy, Nirmala Lakshman…
The four great wars of N. Ram on ‘Hindu’ soil
ARVIND SWAMINATHAN writes from Madras: As if to prove the old adage that blood is thicker than water, there have been four rounds of internecine strife in the last 22 years in the undivided Hindu family that owns and runs India’s “most respected” newspaper. To no one’s surprise, Narasimhan Ram aka N. Ram, the card-carrying…
The Hindu adopts a ‘Code of Editorial Values’
Amid all the internecine strife over who in the family will (or won’t) get to occupy the editorial gaddi, the 12-member board of directors of The Hindu have managed to adopt a code of editorial values, although Mail Today reports that the new nine-point code has not been unanimously adopted by the board. *** 1.…
When it’s all in the family, it is all in the family
The latest issue of the Indian edition of Forbes, “the capitalist tool“, has a four-page story on the war of the brothers in the boardroom of The Hindu over the proposed retirement norms for directors. The article reveals that “for several weeks now,” two of the brothers in The Hindu triumvirate—editor N. Ravi and senior…
‘N. Ram is stalling Malini Parthasarathy’s ascent’
The veteran journalist, author, civil rights activist, and former Indian high commissioner to London, Kuldip Nayar, weighs in on the tussle within the boardroom of The Hindu, in the latest issue of M.J. Akbar‘s weekly newspaper, The Sunday Guardian: “I wonder why N. Ram, 65, is so reluctant to retire. People may have differed with…
Express declares ceasefire; brothers declare war
The tussle between The Indian Express and The Hindu following the former’s reports (Part I and Part II) on the boardroom happenings in the latter has predictably and understandably gone cold after N. Ram‘s belligerent announcement of “criminal and civil defamation proceedings”. Express bossman Shekhar Gupta is said to have instructed staff to go easy…
Now, it’s Malini Parthasarathy vs ‘The Stalinists’
In the great undivided Hindu family, the fiery former executive editor Malini Parthasarathy, is the odd woman out after the reassignment of familial duties. And she lets it hang all out on her Twitter account. The board of directors of Kasturi & Sons comprises the descendants of four cousins G. Narasimhan, S. Parthasarathy, S. Rangarajan,…
Not just about the brothers, it’s the children too
Far from being cowed down by N. Ram‘s threat to sue for the “demonstrable falsehoods and defamatory assertions” in its report on “Ram’s role and actions in developments within the newspaper group and the company“, the Indian Express continues its coverage of the goings-on in the board room of the “Mount Road Mahavishnu” for the…
Indian Express vs The Hindu, N. Ram vs N. Ravi
*** The Indian Express, Delhi, has a front-page “exclusive” on the fracas in the family controlling The Hindu, Madras. The main points the Express story (also simultaneouly carried in its sister-business daily Financial Express) by media correspondent Archna Shukla makes are: a) disagreements over the “proposed retirement” of publisher and editor-in-chief N. Ram; b) the…
IJR 