Shekhar Gupta storms into India Today powerlist

Thirteen out of India Today magazine’s 2013 ranking of the 50 most powerful people in India have interests in the media, but only two of them (former Indian Express editor Arun Shourie, Times Now editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami, Indian Express editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta) are pure-play journalists.

The chairman of the press council of India, Justice Markandey Katju, is a new entry at No. 50, just as Gupta is at No. 45, Hindustan Times bosswoman Shobhana Bhartia at No. 39 and Star India CEO Uday Shankar at No. 26.

***

No. 1: Mukesh Ambani, chairman, Reliance Industries and “virtual owner” of TV18 (up from No. 3 in 2012)

No. 4: Kumaramangalam Birla, chairman Aditya Birla group, and 27.5% stake holder in Living Media (up from No. 5): “sings Hindi film songs, although only in close family circles”

No. 7: Samir Jain and Vineet Jain, The Times of India, down from No.6 last year

No. 26: Uday Shankar, CEO, Star India (new entry)

No. 28: Kalanidhi Maran, chairman and MD of Sun Group (up from 49 last year)

No. 31: Mahendra Mohan Gupta and Sanjay Gupta, chairman and CEO, Dainik Jagran (No. 31 last year)

No. 35: Subhash Chandra, chairman, Zee television and DNA (No. 35 last year)

No. 39: Shobhana Bhartia, chairman and editorial director, HT Media (new entry): Her home in Friends Colony (West) in Delhi was acquired from the erstwhile royal family of Jind.

No. 36: Raghav Bahl, MD, Network 18 (up from No. 44)

No. 38: Arun Shourie (new entry): His dictum: “We must learn to be satisfied with enough and enough is what we have at the moment.”

No. 41: Arnab Goswami (up from 46): “Plays loud music on his iPod before every show to unwind.”

No. 45: Shekhar Gupta (new entry)

No. 50: Justice Markandey Katju, chairman, press council of India (new entry): The Ph.D. in Sanskrit asked Lucknow lawyer S.K. Kalia who entred his court, ‘Ab tera kya hoga Kalia‘?

***

Photograph: courtesy Indian Express

***

Also read: 12 media barons worth 2,962, 530,000,000

10 media barons in India Today 2010 power list

26% of India’s most powerful are media barons

An A-list most A-listers don’t want to be a part of

Blogger breaks into Businessweek most powerful list

***

The Indian Express power list

2012: N. Ram, Arnab Goswami crash out of power list

2011: Arnab Goswami edges out Barkha Dutt

2010: Arun Shourie more powerful than media pros

2009: 11 habits of highly successful media people

HT wedding unites Ambanis and Birlas

News of a wedding that brings India’s most powerful corporate, Reliance Industries, closer to India’s second largest English newspaper, Hindustan Times, which is headed by the Congress member of Parliament Shobhana Bhartia.

From Mail Today, the tabloid newspaper from the India Today group:

Mukesh Ambani‘s home Antilia has seen a number of parties in the last few months like the one thrown to celebrate Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 100 international centuries.

The next one promises to be the mother of all bashes.

Mukesh and Anil Ambani‘s sister, Nina Kothari‘s daughter Nayantara will be tying the knot with K.K. Birla‘s grandson Shamit Bhartia.

Shamit is the son of Hindustan Times boss Shobhana Bhartia and her businessman-husband Shyam Bhartia of Jubilant.

While the wedding is in Chennai, Mukesh and his wife Nita are throwing a lavish dinner at Antilia on January 5. This will be the first wedding of the late Dhirubhai Ambani‘s grandchildren. Secondly, all of Dhirubhai and Kokilaben’s children would be seen together after a long time.

For the record, Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries (RIL) owns a large chunk of TV18 group, which has control over the ETV network of channels, through a controversial deal that later won the approval of the Competition Commission of India (CCI).

12 media barons worth Rs 2,962,530,000,000

Twelve media barons in Forbes India‘s list of the 100 richest Indians are worth $54.6 billion, in other words Rs 2,962,530,000,000.

There are five pure-play media barons in the Forbes list: Subhash Chandra of Zee (total worth $2.9 billion) at No. 22, Kalanidhi Maran of Sun ($2.8 billion) at No. 24, Indu Jain of The Times of India ($1.9 billion) at No. 31, Shobhana Bharatia of Hindustan Times ($620 million) at No. 93 and Ramesh Agarwal of Dainik Bhaskar ($580 million) at No. 95,

There are seven others with partial media interests: Mukesh Ambani of TV18-ETV ($21 billion) at No. 1, Shashi and Ravi Ruia of TimeOut ($8.1 billion) at No. 8, Kumar Mangalam Birla of Living Media ($7.8 billion) at No. 10, Anil Ambani of Bloomberg ($6 billion) at No. 11, Rajan Raheja of Outlook* ($2.2 billion) at No. 29 and Sanjiv Goenka of Open ($725 million) at No. 80.

***

The Forbes special issue features a four-page profile of Satyan Gajwani, the son-in-law of The Times of India‘s bossman Samir Jain and CEO of Times Internet Limited (TIL), the group’s digital arm.

“It was in the last year of Stanford that Satyan’s life took a turn when he met Trishla Jain. “I didn’t know anything about Trishla’s family. We dated through college. We both moved to New York, she was doing other work at NYC.”

# Samir Jain told Gajwani that he really should think about coming to India. “He said a lot of strategic decisions are going to be made in next six months that may have long term impact, so you should be part of them.”

# “Fortunately, Trishla’s dad was very progressive, both in terms of intellect and culturally. He was convinced that we would have married anyways. He said, you are already my son for all practical purposes. So I moved here as her boyfriend and lived with them in Delhi for six months. And then when I was comfortable, we got engaged, and a year-and-a-half later, we got married in 2011.”

# “I have the autonomy to make a big change in our culture and processes. It’s partially because I am the family.”

# That Gajwani has come into Times Internet Limited at the top, as CEO, has had many people saying his success was not earned. That includes his own father. “My dad says you should work your way up a company, slog it out for five years first, so he’s like, you’ve just got put in this position so soon.”

# “In India there is a hierarchical perception: They will agree because I am the boss. That is not what I want, my intention is to stimulate debate.”

# “Digital media is different from other media. Most media companies suck at it.”

# Trishla is now carrying their baby and in a few months, they’ll be parents. “So I have got four more months of being able to work very hard and then life goes normal. He does not want to ‘outsource’ parenting. “I am excited to have kids, but if it’s too much to handle then I can just give them to Samir Uncle.”

* Disclosures apply

***

Also read: Forbes can name India’s second richest woman

External reading: How did Satyan Gajwani become CEO at 27?

N. Ram, Arnab Goswami crash out of power list

Despite stitching up one of the biggest media deals in recent times, TV18′s Raghav Bahl is among four  media persons who have crashed out of the Indian Express list of the 100 most powerful people in the year of the lord 2012.

N. Ram, the former editor-in-chief of The Hindu (No. 73 in last year’s list) finds himself in the doghouse having remitted office recently, as does Times Now editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami (No. 90), who had edged out NDTV’s Barkha Dutt in the  2011 ranking. Also out is Sun TV boss Kalanidhi Maran (No. 38).

One media figure makes a lateral entry: the new press council chairman, Justice Markandey Katju.

The number of media people in the Express list of India’s most powerful continues to drop. There are seven media people in the 2012 power list, as opposed to 11 in 2009, 12 in 2010, and 10 in 2011.

As in the past, the list contains a bit of trivia.

#No. 67, Samir Jain and Vineet Jain, The Times of India group: “The elder brother is an ardent follower of a Bombay-based guruji, whom he calls ‘bhagwaan’.”

# No. 69, Sanjay Gupta and Mahendra Mohan Gupta, Dainik Jagran: “Sanjay loves watching Hollywood films while M.M. Gupta likes Hindi film songs of the sixties.”

# No. 71, Shobhana Bhartia, Hindustan Times: “She is a fitness freak.”

# No. 72, Uday Shankar, Star India: “He enjoys cooking Indian food. He loves experimenting so much that he never repeats a dish.”

# No. 73, Arun Shourie: “The prolific writer’s next book is an ‘expanded’ edition of Falling over backwards, which he had written in 2006, arguing against the reservation policy and judicial populism.”

# No. 80, Aveek Sarkar, Ananda Bazaar Patrika group: “He is passionate about art and has a large collection of works from the Bengal school of art and the Raj era.”

# No. 83, Justice Markandey Katju, press council chairman: “It’s not just Urdu poet Ghalib whom Katju likes, he is equally fond of Sanskrit poet Kalidas.”

As in previous years, Indian Express does not reveal how the list was arrived at or who the jury members were, although it asks readers to write to the jury (ie100@expressindia.com) “if you disagree with our jury”.

The tabloid supplement carrying the 2012 list has been “presented” by Central Park, a developer, and Campus shoes.  The lead sponsor like last year is IRB infrastructure developers.

Among the advertisers is Nobel Hygiene which makes adult diapers.

***

2011 list: Arnab Goswami edges out Barkha Dutt

2010 list: Arun Shourie more powerful than media pros

2009 list: 11 habits of highly successful media people

HT springs to ToI’s support in Times Now case

Admittedly, the Justice P.B. Sawant libel case against Times Now is a grave one with serious implications for the media across the nation. Even so, it is worth asking if The Times of India-Hindustan Times jugalbandi—most evident when the arch rivals joined hands to float a (now-defunct) tabloid to stymie the launch of Mail Today from the India Today group four years ago— is back in full flow?

Some fresh evidence of it is visible in today’s issues of the two papers. While ToI carries a long story on HT Media’s complaint against a music company over royalty, HT has returned the favour with an editorial page piece against a Pune court order directing Times Now to pay Rs 100 crore in damages to former Supreme Court judge Justice Sawant, for wrongly showing his photograph in a news story on corrupt judges three years ago.

The author of the HT piece is the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha and the noted Supreme Court advocate, Arun Jaitley, who writes:

“As someone having familiarity with the quantum of damages Indian courts award, this order appears to be somewhat unusual. Observers are still unable to come to terms with the quantum of damages awarded even in cases of death or disability caused by Union Carbide in the Bhopal gas tragedy.

“The quantum awarded in various death cases, be it an accident or otherwise, in India, is normally modest. The quantum awarded recently in the Uphaar fire tragedy is a case in point.

“If a former judge is entitled to R100 crore for his photograph being flashed erroneously on account of being mistaken with another phonetically similar name, will this precedent be applied by Indian courts to other ordinary mortals who complain of loss of reputation on account of far more serious allegations?

“I am not aware of a single case where even 1% of this amount has been awarded to an ordinary citizen or a public person for loss of reputation. There is no better way of shutting down Indian media than by awarding punitive damages against journalists, newspapers or TV channels that are completely disproportionate to the value of money in Indian society.

“Each media organisation is expected to exercise due care and caution. Errors, however, will take place on account of the very nature of the news circulation business. If channels or newspapers are to suffer such an order, on the assumption that R100 crore are to be the normal damages awarded to a citizen, we may in the next 10 years become a nation without media organisations.”

Read the full article: Control freakery

Also read: Editors’ Guild backs Times Now in libel case

Arnab Goswami edges out Barkha on power list

NDTV group editor Barkha Dutt is the big media dropout from Indian Express‘s 2011 list of the 100 most powerful Indians. Dutt, who entered the ranking at No. 82 last year, has made way for her former colleague, Times Now editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami, who enters at No. 90.

Barring Arnab and Star India CEO Uday Shankar, who is ranked No. 85, there are no new media names in the Express list. But there are two sub-surprises.

The Hindu‘s editor-in-chief N. Ram who threatened “criminal and civil defamation proceedings” against the Indian Express last year, remains on the list at No. 73. But the Islamic tele-evangelist Zakir Naik, whose inclusion last year and whose Walk the Talk interview with Express editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta, attracted plenty of criticism after he was barred entry into Britain, is out.

As in previous years, Indian Express does not reveal how the list was arrived at or who the jury members were, although it proclaims that the jury was excluded from the list. The tabloid supplement carrying the power list—heavily advertised on NDTV—is sponsored by Earth infrastructure company, and all the boxes containing subsidiary lists are powered by IRB infastructure developers.

The list contains a one-line kink/fetish of the powerful.

# No. 38, Kalanidhi Maran, chairman and managing director, Sun group: “While in Chennai, he travels in his fleet of super luxury cars. For longer journeys, he has a private jet.”

# No. 56, Samir and Vineet Jain, VC and MD, Times of India group: “The older brother is highly spiritual and his executives often have to make a trip to Haridwar to discuss important issues with him. The younger one’s Holi bashes are considered the best in town.”

# No. 73, N. Ram, editor-in-chief, The Hindu: “He is quite active on Twitter and is prompt with his replies to questions and comments.”

# No. 77: Shobhana Bhartia, editorial director, HT Media: “She is a fitness freak, works out every day.”

# No. 79, Aveek Sarkar, chief editor, Anand Bazaar Patrika: “He is a good golfer and is captain and convenor of the Royal Calcutta Golf Club.”

# No. 82, Sanjay Gupta and M.M. Gupta, CEO and CMD, Dainik Jagran: “Sanjay loves to dance, and MM loves playing cards.”

# No. 85, Uday Shankar, CEO, Star India: “He can’t be in a room which has no TV. He watches almost all the time.”

# No. 86, Arun Shourie, columnist and author: “Shourie’s most prized possessions are his vast collection of books. He is extremely possessive about his library.”

# No. 90, Arnab Goswami, editor-in-chief, Times Now: “He hates socialising and is rarely spotted at a social event.”

# No. 92, Raghav Bahl, editor, Network 18: “He is not too fond of socialising. Consequently, he ends up watching a lot of TV. At times, he watches about five or six channels simultaneously.”

There were 11 mediapersons in the 2009 list: eight of them had a presence in newspapers, three in television and only one was from the magazine sphere. Four of the 11 were from the language press. There were 12 mediapersons in the 2010 list.

Photograph: courtesy Outlook

Also read: The 11 habits of India’s most powerful media pros

A columnist more ‘powerful’ than all media pros

The curious case of Zakir Naik and Shekhar Gupta

A columnist more ‘powerful’ than all media pros

There are 12 media professionals—proprietors, promoters, publishers, editors—in the Indian Express list of the 100 most powerful Indians in 2010, but an irregular columnist is listed to be more powerful than all of them.

The quirky list, which makes no mention of the methodology or the jury, has two newcomers from the 2009 list—columnist Arun Shourie and TV anchor Barkha Dutt—and shows the door to three others.

Like last year, the IE list chronicles the kinks of the boldfaced names. And like year, Express has diligently kept editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta‘s name out of the reckoning.

***

# No. 38: Arun Shourie, journalist turned politician: “He asks all visitors to his library to take off their shoes before they enter.” (new entry)

# No. 53: Sameer Jain and Vineet Jain, chairman and managing director, Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd: “Sameer’s daughter and son-in-law are being groomed to take leadership positions.”

# No. 70: N.Ram, editor-in-chief, The Hindu: “He is very fond of western classical music.”

# No. 72: Kalanidhi Maran and Dayanidhi Maran, Sun network: “Daya never misses his evening walk; Kalanidhi owns a Lamborghini.”

# No. 73: Raghav Bahl, founder Network 18: “The TV veteran is terribly camera-shy.”

# No. 76: Shobhana Bhartia, Hindustan Times: “Owns one of the finest sari collections among women entrepreneurs.”

# No. 77: M.M. Gupta and Sanjay Gupta, Dainik Jagran: “Sanjay is a fitness freak, uncle sets agenda at work.”

# No. 79: Aveek Sarkar, editor-in-chief, Ananda Bazaar Patrika Group: “He is in the business of news but doesn’t like to speak to the media.”

# No. 82: Barkha Dutt, group editor, NDTV: “A blogger who slammed her 26/11 coverage had to say sorry.” (new entry)

***

# Out from the 2009 list: Prannoy Roy, founder, NDTV (No. 61) ; Prabhu Chawla, editor, India Today (No. 71); Ramesh Chandra Agarwal, chairman, Daink Bhaskar (No. 88)

Also read: 26% of India’s most powerful are media barons

The 11 habits of India’s most powerful media pros

Arun Shourie: ‘Intolerant. Abusive. Dictatorial.’

The 11 habits of India’s most powerful media pros

Eleven media professionals—editors, publishers, promoters, proprietors—figure in the Indian Express list of the 100 most powerful Indians in 2009.

Eight of them have a presence in newspapers, three in television, only one is from the magazine sphere. Four of the 11 are from the language press.

The IE ranking also lists the quirks and kinks of the bold faced names, including those of the media pros.

# 50: Vineet Jain and Samir Jain, owners, The Times of India group: “Vineet likes going to discos, Samir often visits a spiritual retreat close to Haridwar.”

# 58: N. Ram, editor-in-chief, The Hindu: “He has an air-conditioned aviary at home. He is crazy about tennis and cricket.”

# 61: Prannoy Roy, co-founder, New Delhi Television (NDTV): “Accompanies his 85-year-old father to India’s cricket matches, this week in New Zealand.”

# 70: Raghav Bahl, managing director, Network 18: “The figure 18 in the company’s title is a lucky charm.”

#71: Prabhu Chawla, editor, India Today: “A sharp dresser, he has a tie fetish and possesses a wide range of designer ties.”

# 73: Shobhana Bhartia, vice-chairman, The Hindustan Times group: “Her friends swear by her. She is known to be the most loyal of friends.”

# 76: Mahendra Mohan Gupta, CMD, and Sanjay Gupta, CEO and editor, Dainik Jagran: “M.M. Gupta hangs out at a chaiwala‘s when in Kanpur. Sanjay likes the colour blue.”

# 77: Aveek Sarkar, editor-in-chief, Anand Bazaar Patrika group: “He is always impeccably turned out in a white starched dhoti at social dos.”

# 88: Ramesh Chandra Agarwal, chairman, Dainik Bhaskar group: “He loves eating chaat in Bhopal’s Chowk area. He is good at number crunching.”

Also read: Forbes can name India’s second richest woman

Is this man the next media mogul of India?

Vir Sanghvi’s first HT blog targets Mint again

Former Hindustan Times editor Vir Sanghvi has once again launched into the new editor of Mint, R. Sukumar, for not carrying a column in which he had attacked the fledgling business paper’s coverage of the INX saga starring Sanghvi.

In his first column for the newly launched blogs section of HT, Sanghvi writes glowingly of the freedom he allowed columnists who took a contrarian position (backed, he claims, by the paper’s owners K.K. Birla and Shobana Bharatia), but disses Sukumar for censoring a column which contained “two paras” that were critical of Mint‘s coverage.

“Clearly, Mint can dish it out but it can’t take it.

“The mature option would have been to carry the piece, which would probably have passed unnoticed. I am an admirer of Mint and my criticism was restricted to its media coverage, which is already regarded within the profession as a joke, an island of gossip and inaccuracy amidst page after page of well-meaning, serious, magazine-type articles.”

Read the full blog: Critical freedom

Also read: Vir Sanghvi lashes out at Mint censorship