She is recognized in India for her investigation of the Bofors-India Howitzer deal which is widely believed to have contributed to the electoral defeat of former prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1989.
She founded CSDconsulting, a Geneva based specialised consultancy working in the area of public health, trade policy, development directions and media.
In April 2012, Columbia University's School of Journalism cited a joint article by N. Ram, who headed The Hindu's investigation, and Subramanian [7] among 50 Great Stories since 1915.
In 1997, Chitra Subramaniam was invited by Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former Prime Minister of Norway to be part of her campaign team for the post of Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Dr. Brundtland was elected as head of the WHO and she announced that global tobacco control was one of her priorities setting up a special project called which oversaw multilateral negotiations between 198 countries to conclude the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the world's first treaty entirely devoted to public health.
In April 2012, 25 years after L'affaire Bofors came to light, Sten Lindstrom, former head of Swedish police said he was the "deep throat" who explained the modus operandi of the illegal payments when he handed over the documents to Subramaniam.