Viveck Goenka, Chairman and Managing Director of the Express Group, and N. Ravi, former Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu , were on Thursday unanimously elected Chairman and Vice Chairman of Press Trust of India, the country’s largest news agency.
Mr. Goenka (60) succeeds Riyad Mathew, who is Senior Assistant Editor and a member of the Manorama management. Mr. Ravi (69) succeeds Mr. Goenka as Vice Chairman.
The election took place at a meeting of the Board of Directors following the Company’s 69th Annual General Meeting here on Thursday.
Mr. Goenka, an engineer by qualification and a publisher by profession, is also a director of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) besides being a member of the Advertising Association, India Chapter. He also served as Chairman of United News of India news agency, as a Council Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation and was one of the youngest past Presidents of the Indian Newspaper Society. He is also a wildlife photographer and an avid student of conservation.
Mr. Ravi, an award-winning journalist with an illustrious career in India and the United States, is a Director at Kasturi & Sons Ltd, which publishes The Hindu .
Mr. Ravi joined The Hindu in 1972, and served as reporter, leader writer and Washington Correspondent until 1980 when he became a Deputy Editor. He was Editor from 1991 to 2011 and Editor-in-Chief from October 2013 until January 2015.
He has a Master’s degree in economics and a bachelor’s degree in law. He has previously been Chairman of the Press Trust of India, and President of the Editors’ Guild of India. He was a member of the Indian government’s National Security Advisory Board from 2006 to 2008.
The other members of the PTI Board are Mahendra Mohan Gupta ( Dainik Jagran ), K.N. Shanth Kumar ( Deccan Herald ), Vineet Jain ( Times of India ), Aveek Kumar Sarkar ( Anand Bazar Patrika ), M.P. Veerendra Kumar ( Mathrubhumi ), R. Lakshmipathy ( Dinamalar ), Vijay Kumar Chopra (The Hind Samachar Ltd), Rajiv Verma ( Hindustan Times ), Hormusji N. Cama ( Bombay Samachar ), Justice R.C. Lahoti, Prof. Deepak Nayyar, Shyam Saran and J.F. Pochkhanawalla.
Addressing shareholders during the Annual General Meeting, outgoing Chairman Mathew noted that the Company posted a revenue of Rs. 172.76 crore during 2016—17 as against Rs.166.36 crore in the preceding year, an increase of Rs. 6.4 crore.
“PTI once again proved to be the pre-eminent news service in India with its fact-based and balanced reportage, fulfilling the news cooperative’s core commitment to its diverse subscribers,” Mathew said.
The PTI Board took a major decision last year to split the roles of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Editor-in-Chief (EIC), which were traditionally held by one person, to meet growing challenges resulting from the changing media landscape.
The editorial team is now led by a new Editor-in-Chief, Vijay Joshi, a veteran journalist with more than three decades experience in the profession. The CEO is Venky Venkatesh, who also has more than three decades experience in sales, marketing, corporate affairs and media.
