History of newspaper In India

Histrory

1. HISTORY OF NEWSPAPER IN INDIA BY- PANKAJ KALRA

2. PREVIEW INTRODUCTION INCEPTION STAGE PRE INDEPENDENCE ERA POST INDEPENDENCE ERA PRESENT DAY CONCLUSION

3. INTRODUCTION MAN IS A SOCIAL ANIMAL AND EVERY HUMAN BEING HAS AN UNQUENCHABLE THIRST TO COMMUNICATE. NEWSPAPER CAN BE DEFINED AS A PRINTED MEANS OF CONVEYING CURRENT INFORMATION. TODAY THE NEWSPAPER IN INDIA IS A PROUD INSTITUTION OF OUR SOCIETY. WHILE WORKING AS A VEHICLE OF PERSUASION ITS BASIC FUNCTION IS TO PROVIDE INFO-EDU-TAINMENT (INFORMATION, EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT). IT ALSO PLAYS THE ROLE OF   ‘WATCH DOG’  OF THE SOCIETY. MAN HAS EVOLVED VARIOUS SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGIES FOR COMMUNICATION. DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE AND SCRIPTS TO PRINTING AND FINALLY TO THE WORLD-WIDE-WEB OF THE INTERNET, WE HAVE DEVELOPED AN IMPRESSIVE ARRAY OF COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS. WITH THE HELP OF THESE SYSTEMS ONLY, WE ARE ABLE TO SEND MESSAGES INSTANT ACROSS VAST DISTANCES AND AROUSE SIMILAR MEANINGS IN MILLIONS OF PEOPLE SIMULTANEOUSLY.  BE IT NEWSPAPERS, MAGAZINES, BOOKS, RADIO, TELEVISION ETC.

4. HISTORY OF NEWSPAPER IN INDIA - THE FIRST NEWSPAPER IN INDIA WAS PUBLISHED ON  29 JANUARY, 1780  BY  JAMES AUGUSTUS HICKY  UNDER THE BRITISH RAJ AND ITS NAME WAS  ‘THE BENGAL GAZETTE’ . IT WAS ALSO CALLED AS  ‘CALCUTTA GENERAL ADVERTISER’  AND PEOPLE SIMPLY REMEMBER IT AS  ‘HICKY’S GAZETTE’. INCEPTION STAGE Contd...

5. CONTENT TYPE IT WAS VERY SMALL TWO SHEET WEEKLY NEWSPAPER. AND THE PAPER WAS FILLED WITH LOTS OF ADVERTISEMENTS WITH THE NAME- THE CALCUTTA GENERAL ADVERTISER. IN FACT, ITS FRONT PAGE WAS FILLED WITH ADVERTISEMENTS ONLY. INCEPTION STAGE Contd...

6. AFTER FEW MONTHS OF HICKY’S PAPER MESSER B MESSINCK AND PETER READ BROUGHT OUT THE  ‘INDIAN GAZETTE’  IN NOVEMBER 1780. MANY OTHER NEWSPAPERS WERE ALSO STARTED, NAMELY CALCUTTA GAZETTE (1784), THE BENGAL JOURNAL (1785). IN 1785, RICHARD JOHNSON IN MADRAS BROUGHT OUT  ‘MADRAS COURIER’  IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE. R. WILLIAM’S  ‘MADRAS GAZETTE’  IN 1795 AND HUMPHREY’S  ‘INDIA HERALD’  IN 1796. IN 1785, RICHARD JOHNSON IN MADRAS BROUGHT OUT  ‘MADRAS COURIER’  IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE. R. WILLIAM’S  ‘MADRAS GAZETTE’  IN 1795 AND HUMPHREY’S  ‘INDIA HERALD’  IN 1796 CENSORSHIP WAS FIRST INTRODUCED IN MADRA S IN 1795 WHEN THE MADRAS GAZETTE WAS REQUIRED TO SUBMIT ALL GENERAL ORDERS OF GOVERNMENT FOR SCRUTINY BY THE MILITAR Y SECRETARY BEFORE PUBLICATION.

7. SOCIAL CAUSE THIS PERIOD WAS MARKED BY SOCIAL REFORMERS LIKE RAJA RAM MOHAN ROY TOWARDS THE END OF THE 19TH CENTURY, MANY SOCIAL REFORMERS BEGAN ACTIVELY CAMPAIGNING FOR RADICAL CHANGES IN INDIAN SOCIETY. THE REFORMATION OF HINDUISM, THE MOVE FOR ABOLITION OF SATI AND EFFORTS TO ENCOURAGE WIDOW REMARRIAGE WERE SOME OF THE MAJOR REFORMS. INSPIRED BY THESE GREAT LEADERS, MANY NEWSPAPERS WERE STARTED IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE COUNTRY. INTRODUCED A NEW APPROACH TO JOURNALISM IN INDIA. THEY INITIATED CLEAR JOURNALISTIC PRACTICES AND COVERED THE PROBLEMS OF LOCAL PEOPLE AND THEIR LIVES. PRE-INDEPENDENCE ERA Contd...

8. FREEDOM STRUGGLE THIS PERIOD WAS MARKED BY STRICT GOVERNMENT CONTROL AND CENSORSHIP . DURING THE BRITISH RULE INDIAN NEWSPAPER CAME INTO EXISTENCE AND PLAYED AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN THE COUNTRY’S FREEDOM STRUGGLE. IN FACT NEWSPAPER WORKED AS ‘MOUTH PIECES’ OF THE FREEDOM STRUGGLE WHETHER AT THE NATIONAL AND REGIONAL LEVEL.  BAL GANGADHAR TILAK BROUGHT KESARI AND MAHARATTA   NEWSPAPER, MAHATMA GANDHI STARTED  YOUNG INDIA  AND  HARIJAN .  PRE-INDEPENDENCE ERA Contd...

9.  FROM THE TRIALS OF TILAK IN 1897 AND 1908, MAHATMA GANDHI IN 1922 , VERNACULAR PRESS ACT OF 1878, THE NEWSPAPERS INCITEMENT TO OFFENCES ACT OF 1908. THE INDIAN PRESS ACT 1931 BEAR TESTIMONY OF THE SUPPRESSIVE AND OPPRESSIVE MEASURES TAKEN AGAINST THE INDIAN NEWSPAPERS.

10. POST-INDEPENDENCE ERA MISSIONARY PHASE OF NEWSPAPER WAS REPLACED WITH A PROFESSIONAL APPROACH. IT STARTED PROVIDING EMPLOYMENT TO THE PUBLIC AND SO, THE NEWSPAPER AGENCY BECAME PROFIT-ORIENTED. ALL THESE SUPPRESSIONS AND OPPRESSION REACHED BRUTAL HEIGHTS DURING THE 1975-77  EMERGENCY REGIME OF INDIRA GANDHI . BUT LATER THE CONDITIONS OF PRESS CHANGED AND REACHED TO ITS ZENITH. FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IS A VERY IMPORTANT AND ALSO NEWS-MEDIA, PRESS ENJOYS GREATER FREEDOM IN A DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY. DAILY NEWSPAPERS LIKE TIMES OF INDIA, THE HINDU, HINDUSTAN TIMES, THE STATESMAN, ECONOMIC TIMES, THE TRIBUNE, NAIDUNIYA, DAINIK BHASKAR, AMAR UJALA, ETC. HAVE BECOME THE MOST CIRCULATED NEWSPAPERS IN THE COUNTRY.

11. FROM THE DAYS OF WOODEN BLOCK PRINTING, NEWSPAPERS HAVE UNDERGONE A SEA CHANGE. TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION HAS MODERNISED THE PRINT MEDIA. FOR A LONG TIME, THESE WERE PRODUCED BY HAND COMPOSING. LATER, THESE WERE REPLACED BY MONOTYPE AND LINOTYPE. IN THIS PROCESS, A MACHINE OPERATED BY A KEY BOARD WAS USED TO COMPOSE LETTERS. THIS HAS ALSO BECOME OBSOLETE NOW. TYPESETTING IN COMPUTERS, OFFSET PRINTING AND LASER PRINTING HAVE TAKEN OVER. DESKTOP PUBLISHING HAS BECOME QUITE COMMON NOW. VARIOUS TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS TOOK PLACE, IT INVOLVED IN A READERSHIP BATTLE, RISE IN LITERACY LEVEL, INTEREST TO KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE SURROUNDING MADE GROW NEWSPAPER. IN EARLIER DAYS, NEWSPAPERS WERE PRINTED ONLY IN BLACK AND WHITE. COLOUR PRINTING WAS NOT POSSIBLE AT THAT TIME. BUT NOW ALMOST ALL THE NEWSPAPERS PRINT COLOUR PAGES . SOME PAPERS PRINT COLOUR ONLY IN SUPPLEMENTS AND SPECIAL PAGES. COLOUR PRINTING HAS MADE THE PAGES LOOK BRIGHTER AND ATTRACTIVE. PRESENT DAY Contd...

12. ACCORDING TO THE AUDIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATION (ABC) REPORT IN MAY 2017, PRINT CIRCULATION HAS GROWN FROM 39.1 MILLION COPIES IN 2006 TO 62.8 MILLION IN 2016 IN INDIA -- A GROWTH OF 60% IN 10 YEARS. THIS, WHILE PRINT MEDIA IS STRUGGLING IN EVERY MAJOR ECONOMY ACROSS THE WORLD HOWEVER, THE PLATFORMS AND METHODS THROUGH WHICH THEY ARE BEING DISTRIBUTED AND THE BUSINESS MODELS THAT SUPPORT THEM ARE UNDERGOING SIGNIFICANT CHANGES . CONCLUSION