Shanth Kumar of Deccan Herald is new PTI Chairman; Someshwar of HT is Vice-Chairman
New Delhi (PTI): K.N. Shanth Kumar of The Printers (Mysore) Pvt. Ltd was on Friday elected Chairman of the Press Trust of India's Board of Directors for a one-year term.
Shanth Kumar's election took place at a meeting of PTI's Board of Directors following their Annual General Meeting at the news agency's headquarters in New Delhi.
The Board also elected Praveen Someshwar, the CEO of Hindustan Times, as the Vice-Chairman. Shanth Kumar replaces Aveek Sarkar, who served as Chairman for two consecutive terms.
"It is a privilege to be at the helm of PTI at a time when it is going through an exciting transformation, particularly after it recently launched the video service," said Shanth Kumar.
Shanth Kumar, 62, has been involved in the management of The Printers (Mysore) Pvt. Ltd in various roles since 1983. He was also Chairman of the Audit Bureau of Circulation(ABC), a member of the Executive Committee of the Indian Newspaper Society(INS) for more than 20 years. This is the second time that he is serving as the Chairman of the Board of PTI, the last time being 2013 to 2014.
"PTI is fortunate to have someone of Shanth Kumar's calibre at the helm. His understanding of the legacy newspaper business and the new-age digital news ecosystem will be of immense benefit to the news agency," said Vijay Joshi, PTI's CEO and Editor-in-Chief.
The Printers (Mysore) Pvt. Ltd publishes English daily Deccan Herald, Kannada language daily Prajavani, Sudha and Mayura newspapers from its headquarters in Bengaluru.
Shanth Kumar has a keen interest in sports and photography. He has covered several Olympic Games since 1988 as an accredited photographer, besides several other sporting events.
Someshwar is a veteran FMCG industry executive with a career spanning nearly three decades in planning and executing strategies. Before joining Hindustan Times, he led PepsiCo's business in the food and beverage sector across Asia. Previously based in Hong Kong, he managed all PepsiCo businesses across Asia, excluding China and India.
Press Trust of India is the country's largest and oldest private news agency. It was founded two weeks after Independence in 1947 by a group of newspapers, which also own it. The shareholders, however, receive no part of the company's profits, which go back towards the development and modernisation of the news agency.
Besides Shanth Kumar, Someshwar and Sarkar, the 16-member PTI Board also includes Vijay Kumar Chopra (Punjab Kesari), Vineet Jain (Times of India), N. Ravi (The Hindu), Viveck Goenka (the Express Group), Mahendra Mohan Gupta (Dainik Jagran), Riyad Mathew (Malayala Manorama), M.V. Shreyams Kumar (Mathrubhumi), Adimoolam (Dinamalar), Hormusji N. Cama (Bombay Samachar), eminent economist Prof. Deepak Nayyar, former Foreign Secretary and NSA Shivshankar Menon, veteran journalist and former Chairman of Business Standard T.N. Ninan and former Executive Director of Tata Sons Ltd. R. Gopalakrishnan.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Traffic fraud: Fake 'no-entry' sticker racket busted in Delhi, mastermind among 3 held
New Delhi (PTI): Police here have busted a crime syndicate involved in traffic fraud and extortion, arresting three people including the alleged mastermind who sold fake stickers to help commercial vehicles bypass no-entry restrictions, an official said on Saturday.
The police said they dismantled a third organised syndicate linked to traffic-related frauds, with the arrest of Rinku Rana alias Bhushan, his associate Sonu Sharma and Mukesh Kumar alias Pakodi, who was also connected to another extortion syndicate.
According to the police, Rinku Rana was running a well-organised network that facilitated the movement of commercial goods vehicles during restricted hours by selling fake 'marka' or stickers for Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000 per vehicle every month. The stickers were falsely projected as authorisation to evade traffic challans.
During raids, the police recovered Rs 31 lakh in cash, property documents worth several crores of rupees, over 500 fake stickers and six mobile phones allegedly used to operate the syndicate.
The crackdown followed a complaint filed by a traffic police officer in April this year after a commercial vehicle tried to evade checking by producing a fake sticker claiming exemption from enforcement action.
Investigation revealed that social media groups were being used to coordinate the illegal movement of vehicles and alert drivers about traffic police checkpoints, police said.
"A parallel system was being run to cheat drivers and vehicle owners while undermining traffic enforcement. On the basis of evidence, provisions related to organised crime under the BNS were invoked," a senior police officer said.
Sonu Sharma, the police said, managed social media groups through which stickers were sold and real-time alerts were circulated regarding traffic police movement. He also acted as a link between Rana and drivers operating in the field.
In a related development, Mukesh Kumar alias Pakodi, an associate of Rajkumar alias Raju Meena, who was earlier arrested under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), was also apprehended.
Mukesh allegedly helped extort money from transporters and was involved in blackmailing traffic police personnel by recording enforcement actions, the police said.
Investigators alleged the syndicate led by Rajkumar deployed drivers to deliberately violate traffic rules and secretly record police officials during challans, later using manipulated videos to extort money under threat of false allegations.
The police said that in total, eight accused belonging to three different organised crime syndicates linked to traffic frauds and extortion have been arrested so far.
Further investigation is underway to trace the remaining members, conduct financial probes, and analyse digital evidence recovered during the raids, officials added.
