Ram began his career in
The Hindu in 1977 under the editorship of his uncle
G. Kasturi. He served as an
associate editor of the newspaper till the retirement of Kasturi in 1991. In between, he served as the
Washington correspondent for two years, 1980–1982. Despite tremendous pressure from the Rajiv Gandhi administration to stop the Bofors series, he refused to cave in. This brought him in loggerheads with G. Kasturi as well as the other members of the Kasturi family. As a result, when Kasturi stepped down in 1991, Ram's younger brother
N. Ravi was brought in as the editor of
The Hindu and Ram was "shunted out" to
Frontline, the fortnightly magazine of The Hindu Group.
Siddharth Varadarajan, editor of
The Hindu, succeeded him, with effect from 19 January 2012, as editor of
The Hindu responsible for the selection of news under the Press and Registration of Books (PRB) Act of 1867. D. Sampathkumar, editor,
Business Line, R. Vijaya Sankar, editor,
Frontline, and Nirmal Shekar, editor,
Sportstar, took over, with effect from 19 January 2012, as editors responsible for the selection of news under the Press and Registration of Books (PRB) Act of 1867 in these Group publications.
K. Balaji, managing director of Kasturi & Sons Ltd., the public limited company that brings out The Hindu group of publications, succeeded Mr. Ram as publisher of all the group publications. Subsequent to changes in the Editorial & Business of
The Hindu on 21 October 2013, Ram has become chairman of Kasturi & Sons Limited and publisher of
The Hindu and group publications.
Awards and recognition Ram's contribution to journalism has been recognised by a number of awards. These include the Asian Investigative Journalist of the Year (1990) Award conferred by the Press Foundation of Asia at the "One Asia Assembly",
Bofors Case, the disciplined application of his journalistic idealism and the impact of his revelations on the Indian political scene"; the
B.D. Goenka, 1989, shared with
Chitra Subramaniam; in the interest of the nation"; and
XLRI's First
JRD Tata Award for Business Ethics, awarded at the institute's 46th Annual Convocation at
Jamshedpur on 23 March 2003. The Highest national honour conferred by Sri Lanka on non–nationals is the
Sri Lanka Rathna award. Ram, the editor in chief of four Chennai-based publications, became the first Indian national to be awarded that honour on 14 November 2005. Ram has been chosen for the prestigious Raja Ram Mohan Roy Award, presented by the
Press Council of India, for his outstanding contribution towards journalism, the Councils announced on 5 November 2018. The award was presented on 16 November on the occasion of the National Press Day.
Controversies On 25 January 2012, Mr.
K.C. Palaniswamy a former
AIADMK Member of Parliament registered a complaint against Ram and eight others with the Chennai police, accusing them of a 400-acre land grab scam, worth nearly 3 billion. Ram filed and received an anticipatory bail in the case. In 2012, shortly after Ram was honoured by his alma mater, the
Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, Chitra Subramaniam alleged that he was responsible for compromising the identity of their source on the
Bofors story and that she had not received her due as the journalist who broke the story. Ram denied the allegations. ==Personal life==