Friday, March 26, 2010

Updates on cHindu family saga- corporate governance issues

Things took an interesting turn with the other side (aka N.Murali, N.Ravi and Malini P) deciding to voice their side of the story. They claim
the imminent retirement of Ram “as agreed by him in September 2009” and implementation of the succession framework as decided upon by board members earlier. The succession plan included N. Ravi taking over as editor-in-chief after Ram’s retirement and Malini Parthasarathy taking over as editor of The Hindu.

Apparently N.Ravi is pushing for corporate governance norms on this archaic family run newspaper, but the board members afraid of losing their power have back-pedaled.
According to Ravi, he, along with Murali, had prepared a document that outlined broad corporate governance norms and circulated it among the board members on 18 February and the details were yet to be filled in. He said other board members “wanted time” to study the proposals.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mr. Ram perhaps thought that Mr. Murali's time is better spent looking after the Music Academy and he (Ram) would assidously work for the welfare of the Chinese Academy!

Anonymous said...

And Ram strikes back with a dire threat:

Ram also says that the key decisions of the board last Saturday were taken either by a majority of 9-3, or unanimously, depending on the resolution and the subject. "If any director defies or flouts the majority decision of the board, that is tantamount to subverting the mandate of the board and the company," he says.

http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/%3Ci%3Ethe-hindu-%3Ci%3Efamily-war-may-become-legal-battle/389894/

Raj said...

when can we break out the champagne !!

Venkat Ramanan said...

Ahhh this is what we guys were waiting for isn't it? ;)

I hope at least this crisis would reform the newspaper and would create a new media which would try to be objective and unbiased

kutychathan said...

DD... I have repeatedly read the story about the "divided chindu family" that appeared in IE. It appears to be a sober report. The response of Ram has also been included in it. Hundreds of such reports appear everyday about several business houses in newspapers.

Then, what Ram is neighing about? Is he saying that no one should criticize the holy Kasturi family? If the report is malicious as he suggests, what about the thousands and thousands of reports that appears in his trash paper about Hindu organizations? Does Ram has one set of standards and the others another?

kuttychathan said...

One more point...The mint story your link refers to, kicks the bottom out of Ram's bluster.

Now that his own brother Murali has confirmed the veracity of IE report, let us wait to see what Ram is going to do.

Perhaps he would seek the support of his Marxist and Jehadi comrades. They may call the move to remove Ram from the post of LIC as a conspiracy of American Imperialists and Hindu Fascists.

Hindu Fundamentalist said...

i too could not find anything derogatory in the article to call for a law suit. ram is probably thinking of fighting this case in china.

Dirt Digger said...

Anonymous,
One wishes LiC would hike into Tibet and stay there permanently as he describes in his articles.

Dirt Digger said...

Anonymous,
Yeah LiC makes the board the central authority in cHindu when everyone knows that the MD is the ultimate decision making authority there.

Dirt Digger said...

Raj, Venkat,
thanks. One hopes to see this create a change not only at the top but at all layers.

Dirt Digger said...

kuttchathan,
LiC as you know is the master of hypocrisy, he expects one level of standards from some but does not show the same level when it comes to himself.
Had this been a scenario where he was the victim, he wouldv'e praised IE for their stance.