The answer (from this NYT story): due to a “troubling nexus” of business, politics and publishing that proved to be “draining on body and soul”. Raju Narisetti came to India in 2006 to set up a business newspaper for HT Media, leaving The Wall Street Journal, where he worked for…

HT Media Ltd, publisher of newspapers such as Hindustan Times, Hindustan and Mint, has decided to demerge its Hindi business. HT Media will transfer Hindi daily Hindustan, magazines Nandan and Kadambini, internet portals of these publications as well as all employees, assets and liabilities to Hindustan Media Ventures Ltd for…

Publisher HT Media Ltd today said net profit for the quarter ended 30 September was Rs31.41 crore, up 92% year-on-year from 16.28 crore. While the uptick when compared with the depressed sales of the year-ago period is not surprising, net profit for the quarter under review is only marginally (1%)…

Hindustan Times managing editor Samar Halarnkar will move away from his manegerial role to focus on writing full time effective 1 December. He will be redesignated editor-at-large at the paper. “After more than four years of running editions, restructuring our organisation, and training our journalists, Managing Editor Samar Halarnkar now…

Former US president George W. Bush will be a keynote speaker at the HT Leadership Summit, an annual high profile do which will take place this year 30-31 October, sources at the company said. Other speakers include Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Afghan politician Dr Abdullah Abdullah,…

HT Media’s business daily Mint has reshuffled its editorial leadership team (ELT), inducting several recent hires into the paper’s top decision making body. Monika Halan, Nabeel Mohideen and Shuchi Bansal (who recently joined as media editor), have been inducted into the leadership team, apart from Livemint.com managing editor Sidin Vadukut.…

Business news channel NDTV Profit and business daily The Financial Express are in talks to forge a content partnership. NDTV Profit is run by Prannoy Roy-headed broadcaster NDTV Ltd and The Financial Express is published by The Indian Express Ltd, which also publishes the eponymous broadsheet. Spokespersons at both companies…

HT Media Ltd today added two new members to its board of directors. Ajay Relan, a former managing director at Citi Venture Capital International who currently runs his own private equity firm, will join the board as non-executive independent director and HT Media CEO Rajiv Verma will be whole-time director…

Nabeel Mohideen, India bureau chief of Bloomberg, will join HT Media’s business daily Mint as senior editor w.e.f. 1 September. Mohideen has worked at the wire service for nine years, prior to which, he has been at Business Standard, Business World, CNBC TV 18,  Sunday Observer, and The Times of…

Readers of Hindustan Times woke up to a new young look to their 85-year old newspaper on Saturday. The paper implemented the redesign—done by leading newspaper designer Mario Garcia—with plenty of colour all over the paper (including headlines) and several new features. Promising more for the reader, editor-in-chief Sanjoy Narayan…

Hindustan Times is losing two senior editors. Foreign editor Amit Baruah is leaving to head BBC’s Hindi service. Baruah has been foreign editor since 2007, prior to which, he spent 19 years at The Hindu, variously as foreign correspondent at Sri Lanka, Pakistan and South East Asia, and also as…

As part of its continuing expansion of services focussed on the Indian market, The Wall Street Journal has hired Durga Raghunath, managing editor of Livemint.com. She will join WSJ as editor, mobile services and digital product development, India. Raghunath confirmed the development. She will report to Paul Beckett, WSJ’s India…

Here are some highlights from the HT Media post result conference call this morning. Call was attended by HT Media CEO Rajiv Verma, Fever 104 FM business head Keertivasan and chief financial strategist Vinay Mittal. Radio business: The merger of Fever 104 FM into the company contributed Rs7.4 crore to…

Publisher HT Media today said net profit for the quarter ended 31 March dropped 44% from the year-ago period to Rs23.43 crore on account of higher newsprint prices, adverse currency movement and slowing ad revenue growth. Net sales grew 7% y-o-y to Rs333.82 crore, and total income grew 6% y-o-y…

Reacting to the outcome of general elections that were known Saturday, India’s markets breached the upper circuit within a minute of opening trade on Monday and had to be halted for the day when they were reopened two hours later. In country-wide elections, whose results were announced on Saturday, the…

We are introducing a weekly roundup of industry moves culled from a range of sources—some of which we have covered and some that we haven’t. The focus is on senior executive movement in the industries that we cover—media (digital and traditional) and entertainment. If you think we are missing anything,…

In a country where it’s not routine for media to report on other media houses (with rare and honourable exceptions), the Private Treaties programme of Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd, publisher of The Times of India, was the subject of two stories in leading national dailies this morning. While Business…

Fever 104 FM, HT Media Ltd’s Virgin-branded radio station that was for long an also-ran in three of the four markets (except Delhi) it is present in, seems to be making a dramatic come back, registering strong gains in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. Most significantly, for the first time,…

Dow Jones (NYSE: NWS) & Co. In., the News Corp.-owned company that runs Dow Jones Newswires and publishes The Wall Street Journal, will double its investment in India for each of the next two years, the company’s India managing director Mitya New told Mint. For the firm, its India operations…