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TN Ninan to make way for Sanjaya Baru as the new editor of Business Standard
However, Ninan will continue to be the chairman and managing director of Business Standard
After being associated with Business Standard (BS) since 1992, TN Ninan, editor and publisher of the paper, has decided to step down from the post of editor. However, he will continue to be the chairman and managing director of Business Standard.
Sanjaya Baru has been roped in as the consulting editor of BS, and will assume duties from October 1, 2009. He will subsequently take over as the editor of the newspaper from January 1, 2010.
Baru comes with an experience in varied fields, including academics, journalism and government services. He was associated with Financial Express (FE), after which he worked with National University of Singapore and then at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's office as his media advisor.
During his career spanning more than a decade, Baru has worked with The Economic Times (ET), The Times of India and ICRIER (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations).
Ninan took over the reins of BS when the daily was a single-edition (Kolkata) with a circulation of mere 8,000 copies -- one-20th the size of the leader, The Economic Times. From there to being one of the reputed financial dailies of the country, BS has thrived under the leadership of Ninan.
Of the many initiatives taken by Ninan, the idea of a joint venture with Financial Times, which already had a syndication tie-up with ET, was mooted by him during the early 90's, in an attempt to take the newspaper national.
At that time, ET was selling at Rs 2 on weekdays and had a sales figure between 1.5-2 lakh copies. However, BS took the risk of charging a higher cover price of Rs 4 and was aimed at the top-end audience as a premium product.
Prior to joining BS, Ninan was the editor of the ET. He has also been associated with Businessworld as editor and India Today as its executive editor.
Ninan was honoured with the BD Goenka Award in 1992 for excellence in journalism and the Sachin Chaudhari Award for excellence in financial journalism in 1984.