Indian Newspaper Day 2024

Every year on 29th January, we celebrate the Indian Newspaper Day to commemorate the day the first Indian newspaper was released. The first Indian newspaper, named Hickey’s Bengal Gazette, was distributed on this day in 1780. Also known as ‘Calcutta General Advertiser’, it was a weekly newspaper started by an Irishman named James Augustus Hickey. It was not only the first newspaper in India but also in the entire continent of Asia. It was first published in Kolkata, the Indian capital city at that time. 

At a time when news took days to reach the intended audience, Newspapers altered the way things worked. Hickey’s Bengal Gazette talked about the rights of the poor and unprivileged while raising questions about serious social issues. It urged the members of the society to make positive changes and fight for the right causes. However, as India was under the rule of the British at that time, the British Raj ceased newspaper publication out of fear that the media might spread an anti-British message among the Indian population.

James Augustus Hickey was given the title of the “Father of the Indian Press”. Currently, newspapers are published in over 100 languages daily in India, including English and Hindi. The oldest surviving newspaper, Mumbai Samachar (formerly known as Bombay Samachar) was released in 1822.