The New Indian Express is the southern continuum of Ramnath Goenka’s legacy. And so also the continuum of the first edition of Express, as it was published by its founding-owner Varadarajulu Naidu in Tamil Nadu in 1932. Goenka assumed full control of the publication at least five years later, as mentioned in BG Verghese’s book, Warrior of the Fourth Estate.
In a sense, the seed of TNIE’s conception was sown years later when, as per the book, Goenka inducted his grandchildren into management to assess their capabilities and eventually narrowed down on his daughters Krishna and Radha’s sons, Vivek Khaitan and Manoj Sonthalia, respectively. An exercise he undertook after his own son, Bhagwandas, died of a cardiac arrest in 1979. Bhagwandas did not have any male heirs.
