The Indian Express

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For bi-furicated southern edition see The New Indian Express

The Indian Express is an Indian newspaper owned by Ramnath Goenka. It was started in 1931 by Chennai based Veradharajulu Naidu. After his death the group was split in 1999 among his family members into two with the southern editions taking the name The New Indian Express, while the old Indian Express name was retained in the northern editions based in Mumbai with a prefix "The". It is published in all major Indian cities.

The Indian Express is owned by the Indian Express Group, which also owns other newspapers in India such as the Financial Express, a newspaper focused on the Indian economy, stock markets, and fiscal policies. The group has other publications such as Screen weekly, the Marathi-language daily Loksatta, and the Hindi daily Jansatta.

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[edit] Business Publications Division

The group also runs the Business Publication Division. This division publishes and prints out of its headquarters at Nariman Point in Mumbai a series of B2B magazines such as Express Computer, Express TravelWorld (formerly called Travel and Tourism), Express Pharma (formerly Express Pharma Pulse), Express Hospitality (formerly Express Hotelier & Caterer), the IT-focused Network Magazine, CIO Decisions,Express Healthcare Managementand the newly launched business magazine Express Channel Business

The Business Publications Division (BPD) has also ventured into organising events and exhibitions such as [[Express World. The event is a mix of hospitality, travel and healthcare. BPD also conducts events on IT and organises exhibitions for other parties. In September 2006, BPD's Express TravelWorld organised the exhibition for Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) 55th annual convention in Hyderabad.

The Screen Awards, initiated by Ananya Goenka, are focused on films in India. The awards attempt to position themselves as India's first awards that are given by the film fraternity to the film fraternity by way of a jury, as opposed to the other "popular" awards such as Filmfare and Zee Cine Awards.

[edit] History of the group

Indian Express was started by an Ayurvedic doctor and Congress Party member Varadarajulu Naidu in 1932 at Chennai (then Madras) published by his “Tamil Nadu” press. But soon under financial difficulties he sold it to S.Sadanand, founder of the Free Press Journal, a national news agency.

In 1933 The Indian Express opened its second office in Madurai and launched the Tamil edition Dinamani. Sadanand introduced several innovations and reduced the price, but was later forced to sell part of the stake in form of convertible debentures to Ramanath Goenka due to financial difficulties. Later when the free press journal collapsed in 1935 Sadanand lost the ownership of Indian Express after a long controversial Court battle with RNG, where blows were exchanged between some of the parties[citation needed]. Finally a year later RNG Ramanath Goenka to buy the rest of the 26% stake from Sadanand, and the paper came under Goenka's control who took the already anti-establishment tone of the paper to greater heights.[citation needed] Also at that time it had to face stiff competition from a well established The Hindu and the Mail besides other prominent newspapers. In late 1930s the circulation was no more than 2000[citation needed].

In 1939 it also bought out Andhra Prabha, another prominent Telugu Daily. Later it gained the name Three Musketeers for the three dailies[citation needed]. In 1940 the whole premises were gutted by fire. The Hindu, its rival, helped considerably in re-launching the paper, by getting it printed temporarily at one of its Swadesimithran’s press and later offering its recently vacated premises at 2, Mount Road later to become the landmark Express Estates[citation needed]. This relocation also helped the Express obtain better high speed printing machines, while some claimed the Goenka had deliberately set fire to escape financial embarrassment[citation needed].

In later years Goenka started the Mumbai edition with the landmark Express Towers as his office when the Morning Standard was bought by him in 1944. Two years later to become it became the Mumbai edition of The Indian Express. Later on editions were started in several cities like 1957 the Madurai edition, the 1965 Bangalore edition, and the 1968 Ahmedabad edition. The Financial Express was launched in 1961 from Mumbai, Kannada Prabha (Kannada Daily) from Bangalore in 1965 and a Bangalore edition of the Telugu Daily Andhra Prabha, and Gujarati dailies Lok Satta and Jansatta in 1952, from Ahmedabad and Baroda.

The Delhi edition started was when the Tej group's Indian News Chronicle was acquired in 1951, which from 1953 became the Delhi edition of Indian Express. In 1990 it bought the Sterling group of magazines, and along with it the Gentleman magazine.

After Ramanath Goenka’s demise in 1991, two of the family members split the group into Indian Express Mumbai with all the North Indian editions, while the Southern editions were grouped as Express Madurai Ltd. with Chennai as headquarters.

[edit] Goenka's legacy

Goenka is remembered for his journalistic crusades to uphold democracy, and as a tireless soldier who fought corruption in the highest circles.

Praful Bidwai argues in a critique of the right-wing ideology Hindutva that "(t)he Jana Sanghis piggybacking on ...media magnates like The Indian Express's Ram Nath Goenka."

The paper's editorial line is liberal, in both politics and economics.

[edit] Policies

The Indian Express has often carried important investigative reports that had significant consequences. Its coverage of the murder of an engineer working on the national highway project got the Indian Supreme Court to force the Indian Government to commit to a whistleblower law. Its campaign also helped enaction of the Right to Information Act, passed in India in 2005.[citation needed]. The newspaper is known for its intrepid and anti-establishment tone.

[edit] Headquarters

The Express Group has a Mumbai-headquartered division, which should not be confused with Express Publications Madurai, which brings out a South Indian chain of newspapers, including The New Indian Express and is very much a separate corporate entity from The Express Group. The Indian Express is considered to be far less focused on consumer preferences than its upmarket-targeted competitor, The Times of India.

Because of its anti-glamor oriented approach to journalism, and unlike its competitors, the newspaper has now established itself as a neutral and unbiased publication, even while standing as a tough anti-Establishment organ.

[edit] Economic conditions

The newspaper saw falling profits between the years 2000-2002 but did not change its policies and the nature of content it carried. The organisation subsequently posted profits of Rs. 45 crores (Rs. 450 million) in 2004. This financial turnaround has been used as a case study in India's highly regarded Indian Institutes of Management in Ahmedabad.

[edit] Events/Awards

Awards

Events

Information Technology:

Hospitality & Travel:

[edit] External links