Ravi Shankar Etteth Named Editor Of The New Indian Express

Kozhikode: Veteran journalist, cartoonist and novelist Ravi Shankar Etteth has been appointed Editor of The New Indian Express and its Sunday edition, the newspaper announced on Monday. Kiran Prakash M S becomes Executive Editor. Both take charge with immediate effect.

The announcement, signed by Chairman and Managing Director Manoj Kumar Sonthalia, said Ravi Shankar had been associated with the organisation for over two decades and was, until recently, Consulting Editor of the Sunday Magazine. It said he brings “rich experience in journalism and editorial leadership”. Kiran Prakash, formerly Resident Editor for Keralam, has been with the group for more than a decade.

Ravi Shankar succeeds Santwana Bhattacharya, who has resigned after nearly five years in the post. In a personal note, she described the stint as “quite a journey”, saying she had taken a southern newspaper “right into battle with the big boys” of mainstream journalism. She said the paper’s reporting had often become a primary source for the wider media, with story leads picked up by start-ups and large players alike, and that its credibility held across a polarised landscape. She added that she was likely perhaps the first woman in India to rise from beat reporter to editor of a legacy newspaper, and that she would now take a rest before deciding her next step.

Ravi Shankar Etteth belongs to a rare breed of Indian journalist who has moved between the drawing board, the newsroom and the writing desk. He is the nephew of the celebrated Malayalam writer and cartoonist O V Vijayan, a lineage that shaped both his visual wit and his literary leanings.

He first came to prominence in the 1980s with sharp political cartoons during Arun Shourie’s stewardship of the then-undivided Indian Express, a period remembered for confrontational, investigative journalism. His work was known for its caustic edge, and he went on to become a familiar byline and signature in the Sunday magazine tradition, where long-form writing and satire sat side by side.

After a spell at India Today, he joined The New Indian Express, which publishes from 28 centres across the South and East and appears as The Morning Standard in the North. Over some two decades he became one of its most recognisable voices, most recently as Consulting Editor of the Sunday Magazine, where he shaped commentary, features and culture coverage.

Beyond journalism, he is a novelist and the author of six books.