N Ravi, the publisher of The Hindu Group of Newspapers, and Vijay Kumar Chopra, the chief editor of Punjab Kesari Group of newspapers, were on Saturday unanimously elected Chairman and Vice Chairman of Press Trust of India, the country’s largest news agency.

Ravi, 70, succeeds Viveck Goenka, Chairman and Managing Director of the Express Group. The elections took place at a meeting of PTI ’s Board of Directors following the Company’s 70th Annual General Meeting here.

In the incoming Chairman... we have been blessed with a person who brings with him formidable intellect, foresight, knowledge and wisdom, Goenka said. I am certain that he will enhance PTI’s reputation and ensure its financial viability. He noted that the Company posted a revenue of Rs. 172.2 crore during 2017-18, against Rs. 172.8 crore the previous year.

Ravi, an award-winning journalist with a distinguished career in India and the US, is also currently Chairman of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Chennai centre. He has also been the Chairman of the India Chapter of the International Press Institute and member of the Executive Board of the International Press Institute, Vienna. He was President of the Editors’ Guild of India as well as a member of the government’s National Integration Council from 2006 to 2008.

The Chennai-based Ravi has a Master’s degree in economics and a degree in law, and has won several academic awards including a gold medal in constitutional and international law. He was a Fellow at the Harvard Law School in 2000 and Shorenstein Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University in 2004. In 2013, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, and St. Anthony’s College, Oxford University.

He joined The Hindu in 1972, where he served as reporter, leader writer, Washington correspondent, Deputy Editor and Associate Editor. He was Editor from 1991 to 2011 and Editor-in-Chief from October 2013 to January 2015. Ravi has covered several international conferences and travelled with prime ministers and presidents to cover international summits. His special areas of interest and writing include constitutional and political issues, economic policy, international economy, free speech and human rights, and India-US relations.

He is the recipient of several professional awards, including the G K Reddy Memorial Award and BREAD Role Model Award, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati.

Chopra’s Punjab Kesari Group publishes the Hindi language Punjab Kesari, the Jagbani in Punjabi and the Hind Samachar in Urdu, from eight locations in Punjab, Haryana and Jammu. The 86-year-old Chopra, who was awarded the Padma Shri in 1990 for literature and education, was Chairman of PTI twice before in 2001 and 2009.

Besides Ravi, Chopra and Goenka, 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), Hormusji N Cama (Bombay Samachar), Justice R C Lahoti, Prof. Deepak Nayyar, Shyam Saran and J F Pochkhanawalla.

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