NEW DELHI, Sept 10: K N Shanth Kumar and Mahendra Mohan Gupta, two eminent media personalities, were today elected Chairman and Vice Chairman respectively of the Press Trust of India (PTI).
Shanth Kumar, a senior editor and photojournalist belonging to the Bangalore-based Printers (Mysore) Private Limited, and Gupta, Chairman and Managing Editor of the Jagran group, were elected unanimously at a meeting of the PTI Board following the Company’s 65th Annual General Meeting (AGM) here.
Shanth Kumar is the Editor of the leading Kannada daily “Prajavani” and Director of Printers (Mysore), publishers of “Deccan Herald”, “Prajavani”, “Sudha” and “Mayura” publications. He succeeds R Lakshmipathy, publisher of Tamil daily “Dinamalar”.
Long associated with media industry bodies such as Indian Newspaper Society (INS), where he was a member of the Executive Committee for more than 15 years, and the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) of which he is a former Chairman, Shanth Kumar has keen interest in photography, especially in sports photography. He has covered the last seven Olympic games as a photo-journalist.
A veteran of the media industry, Gupta, a former member of the Rajya Sabha, heads one of the largest media conglomerates in the country. He has been President of the INS and the Indian Languages Newspaper Association (ILNA) besides having been Chairman of United News of India (UNI).
Besides Shanth Kumar and Mahendra Mohan Gupta, members of the PTI Board are: Vineet Jain (Times of India), Vijay Kumar Chopra (Hind Samachar), N Ravi (The Hindu), Aveek Kumar Sarkar (Ananda Bazar Patrika), Hormusji N Cama (Bombay Samachar), M P Veerendra Kumar (Maathrubhoomi), R Lakshmipathy (Dinamalar), Riyad Mathew (Malayala Manorama), Sanjoy Narayan (Hindustan Times) and Shekhar Gupta (Indian Express).
The directors from outside the newspaper industry are Prof E V Chitnis, Justice S P Bharucha and Fali S Nariman.
Earlier, outgoing Chairman Lakshmipathy, told the shareholders that while there were positives in PTI’s financial performance in the year goneby, the media industry was under pressure and had been impacted by the considerable slowdown in the economy. That itself would impact on the growth of the industry and consequently PTI’s financial earnings.
He pointed out that the company had challenged before the Supreme Court the wage board notification which, if implemented, would have an “alarming effect” on PTI’s finances.
Lakshmipathy also proposed that PTI, which today provides its news services in English and Hindi, should have services in other Indian languages. (PTI)
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