The Times of India

The Times of India

20 August 2013 front page of the Kolkata edition of The Times of India
Type Daily newspaper
Format Broadsheet
Owner(s) The Times Group
Editor-in-chief Jaideep Bose
Founded November 3, 1838 (1838-11-03)
Language English
Headquarters Mumbai
Circulation 3,321,702 Daily[1] (as of December 2013)
Sister newspapers The Economic Times
Navbharat Times
Maharashtra Times
Ei Samay
OCLC number 23379369
Website timesofindia.indiatimes.com

The Times of India (TOI) is an Indian English-language daily newspaper. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest selling English-language daily in the world according to Audit Bureau of Circulations (India).[1][2] According to the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2012, the Times of India is the most widely read English newspaper in India with a readership of 7.643 million. This ranks the Times of India as the top English daily in India by readership.[3]

It is owned and published by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. which is owned by the Sahu Jain family. In the Brand Trust Report 2012, Times of India was ranked 88th among India's most trusted brands and subsequently, according to the Brand Trust Report 2013, Times of India was ranked 100th among India's most trusted brands. In 2014 however, Times of India was ranked 174th among India's most trusted brands according to the Brand Trust Report 2014, a study conducted by Trust Research Advisory.[4][5]

History

Times of India Buildings, ca. 1898

Beginnings

The Times of India issued its first edition 3 November 1838 as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce.[6][7] The paper published Wednesdays and Saturdays under the direction of Raobahadur Narayan Dinanath Velkar, a Maharashtrian Reformist, and contained news from Britain and the world, as well as the Indian Subcontinent. In 1850, it began to publish daily editions.

In 1860, editor Robert Knight (1825–1892) bought the Indian shareholders interests, merged with rival Bombay Standard, and started India's first news agency. It wired Times dispatches to papers across the country and became the Indian agent for Reuters news service. In 1861, he changed the name from the Bombay Times and Standard to The Times of India. Knight fought for a press free of prior restraint or intimidation, frequently resisting the attempts by governments, business interests, and cultural spokesmen and led the paper to national prominence.[8] In the 19th century, this newspaper company employed more than 800 people and had a sizeable circulation in India and Europe.

Bennett & Coleman ownership

Subsequently, The Times of India saw its ownership change several times until 1892, when Thomas Bennett and Frank Morris Coleman, who drowned in the 1915 sinking of the SS Persia, acquired the newspaper through their new company, Bennet, Coleman & Co. Ltd.

Dalmiya ownership

In 1946, they(who)sold the company to sugar magnate Ramkrishna Dalmia, of the then-famous industrial family, Dalmiyas, for Rs 20 million.In 1955 Vivian Bose Commission of Inquiry found that Ramkrishna Dalmia in 1947 had engineered the acquisition of the media giant Bennett, Coleman by transferring monies from a bank and an insurance company of which he was the Chairman. In the court case that followed, Ramkrishna Dalmia was sentenced to two years in Tihar Jail on charges of Dalmia was prosecuted for embezzlement and fraud.[9]

But for most of the jail term he managed to spend in hospital. Upon his release his son-in-law Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain to whom he had entrusted running of Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. rebuffed his efforts to resume command of the company.[9][10]

Jain family (Shanti Prasad Jain)

In the early 1960s, Shanti Prasad Jain was imprisoned on charges of selling newsprint on the black market.[11][12] And based on the Vivian Bose Commission's earlier report which found wrongdoings of the Dalmia - Jain group, that included specific charges against Shanti Prasad Jain, the Government of India filed a petition to restrain and remove the management of Bennett, Coleman and company. Based on the pleading, Justice directed the Government to assume control of the newspaper which resulted in replacing half of the directors and appointing a Bombay (now Mumbai) High Court judge as the Chairman.

Under Government of India

Following the Vivian Bose Commission report indicating serious wrongdoings of the Dalmia - Jain group, on 28, August 1969, the Bombay High Court under Justice J.L.Nain passed an interim order to disband the existing board of Bennett Coleman and a new board under Government be constituted. The bench ruled that “Under these circumstances,the best thing would be to pass such orders on the assumption that the allegations made by the petitioners that the affairs of the company were being conducted in a manner prejudicial to public interest and to the interests of the Company are correct”. [13] Following that order Shanti Prasad Jain ceased to be a director and the company ran with new directors on board appointed by the Government of India, barring a lone stenographer of Jains. Curiously, the court appointed, D K Kunte as Chairman of the Board. While a freedom fighter and a man of impeccable integrity, Kunte had no prior business experience and was also an Opposition member of the Lok Sabha.

Back to Jain family

In 1976, during the emergency in India, the government transferred ownership of the newspaper back to Ashok Kumar Jain (Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain's son and Ramkrishna Dalmia's grandson and the father of Samir Jain and Vineet Jain).[14] The Jains too often landed themselves in various money laundering scams and Ashok Kumar Jain has to flee the country when the Enforcement Directorate pursued his case strongly in 1998 for alleged violations of illegal transfer of funds to a tune of US$1.25 million to an overseas account in Switzerland.[15][16][17][18]

Editions and publications

TOI's first office is opposite the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai where it was founded.[7]

The Times of India is published by the media group Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. The company, along with its other group companies, known as The Times Group, also publishes Ahmedabad Mirror; Bangalore Mirror; Bangalore Times, Delhi Times; The Economic Times; Ei Samay, (a Bengali daily); the Maharashtra Times, (a Marathi-language daily broadsheet); Mumbai Mirror; the Navbharat Times, (a Hindi-language daily broadsheet); and Pune Mirror.

The Times of India has its markets in major cities such as Mumbai,[19] Ahmedabad, Aurangabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Calicut, Chandigarh, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kolhapur, Kolkata, Madurai, Patna, Puducherry, Pune, Kochi, Lucknow, Nagpur, Nashik, Panaji, Mysore, Hubli, Mangalore, Raipur, Ranchi, Surat, Trichy, Trivandrum, Varanasi , Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam.

Editorial controversies

Times Group Network

Notable employees

Recent updates

In late 2006, Times Group acquired Vijayanand Printers Limited (VPL). VPL previously published two Kannada newspapers, Vijay Karnataka and Usha Kiran, and an English daily, Vijay Times. Vijay Karnataka was the leader in the Kannada newspaper segment then.[23]

The paper launched a Chennai edition, 12 April 2008.[24] It launched a Kolhapur edition, February 2013.

References

  1. 1 2 "Details of language wise most circulated dailies for the audit period July-December 2013". Audit Bureau of Circulations. Retrieved 2014-11-10.
  2. ↑ "National Newspapers Total Circulation". International Federation of Audit Bureaux of Circulations (IFABC). 2011. Retrieved 2014-11-10.
  3. ↑ "Indian Readership Survey – World's Largest Survey" (PDF). Newswatch.in. 30 June 2011. Retrieved 16 October 2012.
  4. ↑ "India's Most Trusted Brands 2014". TRA. November 2013. Retrieved 2014-11-10.
  5. ↑ "Samsung named India's most trusted brand". Times of India. 30 January 2014. Retrieved 2014-11-10.
  6. ↑ "The Times of India". Encyclopædia Britannica. 15 April 2013. Retrieved 2014-11-10.
  7. 1 2 "The Times of India turns the Times of Colour". Televisionpoint.com. 30 April 2006. Retrieved 2007-10-16.
  8. ↑ Hirschmann, Edwin (2008). Robert Knight: Reforming Editor in Victorian India. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-569622-6.
  9. 1 2 "Citizens Jain - The New Yorker". The New Yorker Magazine. 8 October 2012. Retrieved 2015-05-04.
  10. ↑ Auletta. Page 55.
  11. ↑ "This is why Times of India is pro-Congress, Jain brothers owe their wealth to Gandhis". OpIndia.com. 15 December 2014. Retrieved 2015-05-04.
  12. ↑ "Indian Millionaires arrested". Reuter (The Herald (Glasgow)), May 5, 1964. Retrieved May 6, 2015.
  13. ↑ P. Menon Malhan, Sangita (2 August 2013). THE TOI STORY: How A Newspaper Changed The Rules Of The Games. Noida: HarperCollins Publishers India. p. 212. ISBN 9789350296646. Retrieved 2015-05-03.
  14. ↑ Subramanian, Samanth (1 December 2012). "Supreme Being: How Samir Jain created the modern Indian newspaper industry". The Caravan. Retrieved 2014-11-10.
  15. ↑ "Trying times: Editorial changes in The Times of India raise disturbing questions". India Today. 7 July 1997. Retrieved 2014-11-10.
  16. ↑ "Ashok Jain arrested". The Indian Express. 4 July 1998. Retrieved 2013-05-18.
  17. ↑ Mahalingam, Sudha (18–31 July 1998). "Ashok Jain is arrested by the Enforcement Directorate". Frontline. ISSN 0970-1710. Retrieved 2014-11-10.
  18. ↑ "A newspaper scandal: Editorial changes in The Times of India raise disturbing questions". Fontline. 6–19 June 1998. Retrieved 2014-11-10.
  19. ↑ "Online Mumbai Newspaper". Mid Day. 24 April 2014.
  20. ↑ Austin, Granville (1999). Working a democratic constitution: the Indian experience. Oxford University Press. p. 295. ISBN 978-0195648881. (subscription required (help)).
  21. ↑ "New book flays Indira Gandhi's decision to impose Emergency". IBN Live News. 30 May 2011. Retrieved 2014-11-10.
  22. ↑ Desai, Akshayakumar Ramanlal (17 November 1986). Violation of Democratic Rights in India. Bombay: Popular Prakashan. p. 208. ISBN 978-0861321308. Retrieved 2014-11-10.
  23. ↑ "Times Group acquires Vijayanand Printers". The Times of India. 15 June 2006. Retrieved 2014-11-10.
  24. ↑ "TN CM launches Chennai edition of Times of India". The Economic Times. 13 April 2008. Retrieved 2014-11-10.

Further reading

External links

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