Over the course of its history, the family of Kasturi Ranga Iyengar has usually run
The Hindu through the presence of members in editorial and business operations, as well as on the Board. It was headed by G. Kasturi from 1965 to 1991, N. Ravi from 1991 to 2003, and by his brother, N. Ram, from 27 June 2003 to 18 January 2011.
Later developments In 1987–88,
The Hindu's coverage of the
Bofors arms deal scandal, a series of document-backed exclusives, set the terms of the national political discourse on this subject. The Bofors scandal broke in April 1987 with
Swedish Radio alleging that bribes had been paid to top Indian political leaders, officials and
Indian Army officers in return for the Swedish arms manufacturing company winning a hefty contract with the Government of India for the purchase of 155 mm howitzers. During a six-month period, the newspaper published scores of copies of original papers that documented the secret payments, amounting to $50 million, into Swiss bank accounts, the agreements behind the payments, communications relating to the payments and the crisis response, and other material. The investigation was led by a part-time correspondent of
The Hindu,
Chitra Subramaniam, reporting from
Geneva, and was supported by Ram in Chennai. The scandal was a major embarrassment to the party in power at the centre, the
Indian National Congress, and its leader
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The paper's editorial accused the Prime Minister of being party to massive fraud and cover-up. In 1991, Deputy Editor N. Ravi, Ram's younger brother, replaced G. Kasturi as editor. Nirmala Lakshman, Kasturi Srinivasan's granddaughter and the first woman in the company to hold an editorial or managerial role, became Joint Editor of
The Hindu and her sister,
Malini Parthasarathy, Executive Editor. In 2003, the
Jayalalithaa government of the state of Tamil Nadu, of which Chennai is the capital, filed cases against
The Hindu for breach of privilege of the
state legislative body. The move was perceived as a government's assault on
freedom of the press, and the paper garnered support from the journalistic community. Joint managing director N. Murali said in July 2003, "It is true that our readers have been complaining that some of our reports are partial and lack objectivity. But it also depends on reader beliefs." N. Ram was appointed on 27 June 2003 as its
editor-in-chief with a mandate to "improve the structures and other mechanisms to uphold and strengthen quality and objectivity in news reports and opinion pieces", authorised to "restructure the editorial framework and functions in line with the competitive environment". On 3 and 23 September 2003, the reader's letters column carried responses from readers saying the editorial was biased. An editorial in August 2003 observed that the newspaper was affected by the "
editorialising as news
reporting" virus, and expressed a determination to buck the trend, restore the professionally sound lines of demarcation, and strengthen
objectivity and
factuality in its coverage. In 2010,
The Indian Express reported a dispute within the publisher of
The Hindu regarding the retirement age of the person working as the editor-in-chief, a post which was then being served by N. Ram. Following this report, Ram decided to sue
The Indian Express for defamation, a charge which the
Indian Express denied.
N. Ravi and Parthasarathy voiced concern about Ram's decision, saying that doing so goes against
The Hindu's values and that journalists should not fear "scrutiny", respectively. During subsequent events, Malini Parthasarathy tweeted that "issues relating to management of newspaper have come to the surface, including editorial direction" in her response to a question. Later, she called N. Ram and other
The Hindu employees "
Stalinists", alleging that they were trying to oust her from the newspaper. In 2011, during the resignation of
N. Ram, the newspaper became the subject of a succession battle between the members of the Kasturi family. Ram had appointed
Siddharth Varadarajan as his successor as the editor-in-chief of the newspaper who justified the appointment on the ostensible basis of separation of ownership and management, which was opposed by
N. Ravi as it deviated from the publication's tradition of family members retaining editorial control over it. Varadarajan was subsequently accused by dissident family members of being
left leaning and the matter of Varadarajan's appointment was brought in front of the board of directors of the parent company, Kasturi & Sons. During the dispute,
Narasimhan Murali alleged that
N. Ram ran
The Hindu "like a
banana republic, with
cronyism and vested interests ruling the roost". In the end, the board voted 6–6 over a review of the appointment, the tie was broken by a deciding vote from Ram in his capacity as chairman of the company and in favor of his decision. On 2 April 2013
The Hindu started "The Hindu in School" with S. Shivakumar as editor. A new edition for young readers, it is distributed through schools as part of
The Hindu's "Newspaper in Education" programme. It covers the day's important news developments, features, sports, and regional news. On 16 September 2013, The Hindu Group launched its
Tamil-language edition with K. Ashokan as editor. On 21 October 2013, changes were made in Editorial as well as business of
The Hindu. == Notable editors ==