Haveeru Daily

Haveeru Daily (Dhivehi: ހަވީރ ދުވަހު ނޫސް) is the longest serving daily newspaper in the Maldives, established on January 1, 1979.

History

When local newspaper Moonlight ceased publication on December 9, 1978, Haveeru was registered on December 28, 1978, to fill the gap created by the absence of a newspaper. The first issue of Haveeru was brought out on January 1, 1979, under the proprietorship of Mohamed Zuhir Hussain, who is a close friend of the President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and has being serving Minister level positions of the government since 1978

The name

The name Haveeru symbolises the onset of the cool evening time after the heat of the day, which is also the time when the newspaper is brought out. In Dhivehi literature, "haveeru kurun" means the get-together of poets and writers for literary exchanges. Thus, it was decided that the newspaper's name should also symbolise news, information and literary learning.

Haveeru Daily is the longest serving daily newspaper in Maldives, which marked its 20th anniversary on 1 January 1999.

Haveeru is the first newspaper to be printed by offset. The newspaper's efforts at getting its own printing press dates as far back as 1 April 1981, when a private printer declined to publish the newspaper.

With just a break of one day, seen by many as an April Fools Day joke, Haveeru rolled off from another press, but this time not in offset, but hand-written on stencils for cyclostyling. The page size was 30x42 cm. The newspaper first rolled off Haveeru's own offset press on 1 September 1986, with a new enlarged size of 38x55cm. The size was later increased to 42.5x60.5 cm on 1 January 1994.

Many technical setbacks have been overcome with innovation and automation. Haveeru is the first Maldives newspaper to be computerised, in 1985. In also another first, Haveeru began to use Thaana typewriters and Thaana word processors.

The United Nations Environment programme bestowed its Global 500 environmental honour on Haveeru's photojournalist Mohamed Zahir following a series of environmental articles published in Haveeru, which he wrote under the initials "Meemu Zaviyani".

Haveeru is the first newspaper in Maldives to link up with a foreign news agency, the first such link-up being in Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) in 1985. However, the use of radioteletype receivers was not then a successful venture as news reception was often disrupted by unstable weather. Hence, Haveeru turned towards satellite communications, and the newspaper became the first Maldives daily to establish links—via satellite—to get news and information for the print media.

Haveeru also linked up with Agence France Presse (AFP) in 1992. It was followed by another link-up with Reuters news agency in 1994.

In May 1998, Haveeru established Haveeru Addu Bureau at Addu atoll Feydhoo Island, the first regional news centre by a Maldives newspaper. Two full-time journalists are stationed there to cover events in the southern atolls, and reporting is carried out by sending information via the World Wide Web.

External links

• Haveeru Daily Online
• (Dhivehi) Haveeru Daily Online