A daily in the life of India
"A good newspaper," Arthur Miller
once said, "is a nation talking to itself." The eminent playwright
could well have been talking about The Times of India. This paper was
launched as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce in 1838, marking a
fortuitous coming together of medium and message — for it was in that
year that Samuel Morse gave his first public demonstration of the
electric telegraph by transmitting 10 words per minute in a code that
would come to bear his name and revolutionize long-distance
communication. If that wasn't symbolic enough, 1838 was also the year
Queen Victoria — later proclaimed Empress of India — was formally
crowned, and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, whose "Vande Mataram" became the
rallying cry for freedom from the Raj, was born.
Moving with The Times: Nehru and Indira pore over a copy of The Times of India. Over the years, this paper has shifted its sights from simply chronicling to interpreting and forecasting—and on certain issues, actively participating in the conversations that animate our communities and cities.
In the 175 years since, The Times of India has become the unofficial masthead of India, chronicling every momentous milestone in its history:
* From the enactment in the 19th century of the Hindu Widows Remarriage Act (1856), the Indian Penal Code (1860), the Indian Telegraph Act (1885), the Age of Consent Act (1891) and the Land Acquisition Act (1894), to the writing of the Constitution and 20th-century laws legalizing inter-religious marriage (1954) and introducing the concept of divorce among Hindus (1955), to more recent legal landmarks such as the Right to Information Act (2005), the Delhi high court's judgment decriminalizing homosexuality (2009), and the passage of tougher provisions against sexual offences earlier this year.
* From the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885 to the Swadeshi and Quit India movements, Gandhi's Dandi March, Partition and the birth of the Republic, to India's explosive entry into the N-club in 1974, Indira Gandhi's Emergency, her daughter-in-law's "great renunciation", the back and forth between the executive, the judiciary and the legislature, the beauty and grandeur of our elections, the Mandalization of politics, and the steep decline of probity in public life in recent times.
* From the first evidence of Indians playing cricket in 1839, India's debut in Test cricket at Lord's in 1932 and Dhyan Chand's mesmerizing run that powered a hat-trick of Olympic hockey golds between 1928 and 1936, to the 1983 World Cup victory under Kapil Dev, Viswanathan Anand's lightning strikes at the chess board and Sachin Tendulkar's record-shattering magic at the crease.
* From the setting up of the Bank of Bombay in 1840 (it would eventually become the State Bank of India) and the launch of the BSE (Asia's first stock exchange) as "The Native Share & Stock Brokers' Association" in 1875, to Nehru's planned industrialization in the 1950s, the economic liberalization of 1991, and the ascent of India as a trillion-dollar economy (now closer to two trillion, the third-largest in the world in terms of purchasing-power parity and six places ahead of its old colonial master).
* From the collapse of the Maratha and Sikh empires to the Uprising of 1857, Jallianwala Bagh, the World Wars, the assassinations of Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, Operation Bluestar, Babri Masjid, the conflicts with Pakistan and China, the post-Godhra riots, and the deadly drumbeat of terror attacks across our cities since 1993.
The Times of India has lived through floods and famine, plagues and earthquakes to tell the story of every proud first for India: first train (from Bombay to Thane, 1853), first women's college (Bethune in Calcutta, 1849), first film show (in Bombay, 1896), first non-European Nobel laureate for Literature (Rabindranath Tagore, 1913), first Indian Miss World (Reita Faria, 1966), and first Indian satellite in space (Aryabhatta, 1975).
A leading American publisher famously described newspapers as the "first rough draft of history". Nowhere is that sense of history in the making more palpable than in The Times of India's treasure trove of a library in Mumbai. It's possible to spend weeks and months trawling the pages of TOI without once being bored. As with any first rough draft, mistakes and missteps are but inevitable; every morning when the warm sun shines on cold print, one is confronted with the less-than-perfect editorial judgments made the previous night under a ticking clock.
The fact that this paper has grown from a single edition of a few thousand copies to some 50 editions with a circulation of close to five million — the largest in the world for any English newspaper by a long margin — speaks of its ability to divine the ever-changing mood of this chaotic, contradictory and creative superpower-in-waiting, which lives in many centuries all at once. Which big brand in India (and how many globally) can claim to have been around 175 years ago and grown the way The Times of India has? We are often asked, how do you do it? The secret, we believe, lies in being contemporary and relevant — the "Old Lady of Boribunder" remains young at heart, nimble on her feet, and razor-sharp up there. Incredibly proud though we are of our heritage, we don't sail solely on it, but work continually to leave behind a legacy even more iconic than the one we've inherited.
Our heartbeat quickens and our adrenaline rushes on big banner headline days when we commandeer every resource at our disposal to bring our readers "360-degree saturation coverage", leaving little for the magazines to report or analyse. But the bigger challenge is to keep our readers engaged on days when a huge scam isn't being unearthed or a world cup isn't being won.
At its core, The Times of India is about society in transition, it is about the hopes and dreams of individuals, communities and nations. India is transforming — for better and for worse — in ways many of us cannot even begin to fathom. These changes are both invigorating and unsettling. We at The Times of India want to help you tread this churn by providing context, analysis, insight and perspective. In the breathless and often confusing world of "breaking news", we believe it is our duty to separate the signal from the noise by giving you the "why" and "what now" instead of just the "when, where, what and how". For our informed and sophisticated readers, concerns about the longer-term implications of a decision or development are likely to rise above the heat and dust of the here-and-now. It is our constant endeavour to add value in a manner that allows you to move seamlessly from information to intelligence to knowledge to understanding and ultimately, to a higher state of consciousness.
This paper is as much about ideas as it is about events. We are passionate about tracking and anticipating trends so that you can fashion them to your advantage. And we are committed to partnering you in becoming better than you thought you could be.
Our lives, and yours, are being reshaped at numerous intersections — of culture and society, malls and chawls, technology and law, urban and rural, politics and business, global and local, class and caste, talent and enterprise, sports and entertainment — and most worryingly, pelf and poverty, aspiration and frustration.
We are at a critical crossroads, and many of us are not quite sure if red, green, amber still mean stop, go, wait (or should we jump the red and be wary of the green?)
New demographic patterns are emerging; traditional family and organizational structures are crumbling; a huge generational shift is under way; smaller cities are rising; education is creating a new elite; and old notions of nationhood are being revisited. The ground is moving beneath our feet. For a growing number of Indians, this is an Age of Opportunity. The world is their oyster, their playground. What makes this new journey unpredictable is that the future can no longer be extrapolated from the past — there are no certitudes any more, and change is a discontinuous rather than a linear function.
By virtue of its sheer size and spread, The Times of India is, more by design than accident, many things to many people. Instead of being pigeonholed or defined narrowly, we have chosen to straddle the spectrum, from sex to spirituality. Like India, The Times of India too is a mass of niches, and like India, we've become adept at managing and marrying contradictions. This big-tent philosophy opens us up to all kinds of criticism. We have been accused of being "hard" and "soft" on the same government; of being "too negative" and "too positive " in our coverage; of being obsessed with cricket, crime and cinema — and yet being preoccupied with politics. (We have also been accused of being "too commercial", but how many of our readers know that several companies and governments have stopped advertising with us because we wrote something they didn't want us to, or we didn't write something they wanted us to. Our refusal to bend to their will has cost us hundreds of crores.)
Truth is, we have no masters and no hidden agendas. Our dharma is to serve our readers. Which is why we take constructive criticism seriously and listen when you speak. Political parties go to the people once every five years; we seek your mandate every day of the year. The relationship between The Times of India and its readers is a nuanced one. There exists an invisible line of tension between what the editor thinks the reader should be interested in, and what the reader thinks the editor should offer him or her. It is the editor's job to strike that delicate balance. What appears in the paper is often the product of hours of intense debate and introspection over content and tone. In the last few months, for instance, we have asked ourselves countless times, should we be carrying so many stories of rape on the front page? If there is indeed a right answer, we still haven't found it. We are told by those whose opinion we value, "We find these stories very disturbing. Can't you play them down?" But there is an equal and opposite view, again from people we respect, saying, "Please don't bury these stories, you need to keep the pressure on."
Reader interaction has always been central to The Times of India's way of life. Our "Letters to the Editor" column has been graced by unpaid correspondents such as M K Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar, Jinnah, Churchill, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, C Rajagopalachari, Indira Gandhi, Jayaprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia, Charan Singh, Bertrand Russell, Baden Powell, Nirad C Chaudhuri, Vijay Merchant, Malcolm Muggeridge and David Sassoon.
Many of our decisions, big and small, come from a place of wanting to do right by our readers. Some of you may not have even noticed that we no longer highlight reports of student suicides (unless there is a compelling reason to do so) because of the effect they may have on children who are already on edge, particularly during examinations and results. It was a decision we took knowing full well that readers might think, "Oh, TOI missed the story."
Much as we respect — and seek to reflect — the sentiments of our readers, we choose sometimes to swim against the tide of popular opinion. On Section 377, for instance, we ignored dire warnings that our campaign to decriminalize homosexuality would alienate our conservative readers. We went with our conviction that homosexuality must not constitute criminality.
Lord Curzon, who ran India as Viceroy at the turn of the last century, described The Times of India as "the leading paper in Asia". Later, TOI's account of Prince George's visit in 1921 was considered accurate enough to be incorporated as semi-official royal record. We are extremely conscious of our responsibility to be reliable and credible, but official stamps of approval, then or now, don't float our boat. The support and trust of our readers mean much more to us — in large part because we truly and sincerely believe in the primacy of the individual over the state. We have over the years shifted our sights from simply chronicling to interpreting and forecasting — and on certain issues, actively participating in the conversations that animate our communities and cities. The introduction of "Times View" across the news pages of the paper, including the front page, was aimed at shaping opinion and driving change. It would be immodest of us to recount the number of times when a "Times View" has impacted policy, led to new thinking, and triggered changes in law. Courts, governments and legislatures have time and again taken cognizance of our views and acted on them. We don't seek power or influence, but if we can use the columns of this paper to do good, it makes what we do so much more worthwhile.
It is this spirit of making a difference that has prompted us to launch such initiatives as The Times Of India Social Impact Awards, Teach India, Lead India, Aman ki Asha, Times Scholars, City of Angels and Know Your Rights, as well as edition-specific campaigns for women, children and the elderly. We stand for good governance and greater accountability from our elected servants, for gender equality, for stronger civil and civic rights, for liberal values, and for a world where the mind is without fear.
Increasingly, these efforts are being driven through our internet and mobile editions, where TOI's presence is enormous. (We are among the world's top 10 English newspapers online on every possible metric; on several, we are among the top 3 or 5.) We have been expanding our multi-platform presence quietly but dramatically, to reach new audiences and geographies as well as to deepen our engagement with existing readers through multiple touch points and heightened interactivity. As modes of digital delivery grow, the TOI ecosystem becomes ubiquitous and 24x7.
Whatever else changes, one thing won't: we will always keep you at the centre of our universe, we will be the wind beneath your wings. As long as the centre holds, things will never fall apart, the bond will never break. Nothing gives us greater joy than being told by readers that they cannot imagine a day in the life of India without The Times of India. As the sun slowly sets on a cricket legend who turns 40 tomorrow, The Times of India is ready to take fresh guard at 175. Stay with us for the Double, and beyond.
Moving with The Times: Nehru and Indira pore over a copy of The Times of India. Over the years, this paper has shifted its sights from simply chronicling to interpreting and forecasting—and on certain issues, actively participating in the conversations that animate our communities and cities.
In the 175 years since, The Times of India has become the unofficial masthead of India, chronicling every momentous milestone in its history:
* From the enactment in the 19th century of the Hindu Widows Remarriage Act (1856), the Indian Penal Code (1860), the Indian Telegraph Act (1885), the Age of Consent Act (1891) and the Land Acquisition Act (1894), to the writing of the Constitution and 20th-century laws legalizing inter-religious marriage (1954) and introducing the concept of divorce among Hindus (1955), to more recent legal landmarks such as the Right to Information Act (2005), the Delhi high court's judgment decriminalizing homosexuality (2009), and the passage of tougher provisions against sexual offences earlier this year.
* From the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885 to the Swadeshi and Quit India movements, Gandhi's Dandi March, Partition and the birth of the Republic, to India's explosive entry into the N-club in 1974, Indira Gandhi's Emergency, her daughter-in-law's "great renunciation", the back and forth between the executive, the judiciary and the legislature, the beauty and grandeur of our elections, the Mandalization of politics, and the steep decline of probity in public life in recent times.
* From the first evidence of Indians playing cricket in 1839, India's debut in Test cricket at Lord's in 1932 and Dhyan Chand's mesmerizing run that powered a hat-trick of Olympic hockey golds between 1928 and 1936, to the 1983 World Cup victory under Kapil Dev, Viswanathan Anand's lightning strikes at the chess board and Sachin Tendulkar's record-shattering magic at the crease.
* From the setting up of the Bank of Bombay in 1840 (it would eventually become the State Bank of India) and the launch of the BSE (Asia's first stock exchange) as "The Native Share & Stock Brokers' Association" in 1875, to Nehru's planned industrialization in the 1950s, the economic liberalization of 1991, and the ascent of India as a trillion-dollar economy (now closer to two trillion, the third-largest in the world in terms of purchasing-power parity and six places ahead of its old colonial master).
* From the collapse of the Maratha and Sikh empires to the Uprising of 1857, Jallianwala Bagh, the World Wars, the assassinations of Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, Operation Bluestar, Babri Masjid, the conflicts with Pakistan and China, the post-Godhra riots, and the deadly drumbeat of terror attacks across our cities since 1993.
The Times of India has lived through floods and famine, plagues and earthquakes to tell the story of every proud first for India: first train (from Bombay to Thane, 1853), first women's college (Bethune in Calcutta, 1849), first film show (in Bombay, 1896), first non-European Nobel laureate for Literature (Rabindranath Tagore, 1913), first Indian Miss World (Reita Faria, 1966), and first Indian satellite in space (Aryabhatta, 1975).
A leading American publisher famously described newspapers as the "first rough draft of history". Nowhere is that sense of history in the making more palpable than in The Times of India's treasure trove of a library in Mumbai. It's possible to spend weeks and months trawling the pages of TOI without once being bored. As with any first rough draft, mistakes and missteps are but inevitable; every morning when the warm sun shines on cold print, one is confronted with the less-than-perfect editorial judgments made the previous night under a ticking clock.
The fact that this paper has grown from a single edition of a few thousand copies to some 50 editions with a circulation of close to five million — the largest in the world for any English newspaper by a long margin — speaks of its ability to divine the ever-changing mood of this chaotic, contradictory and creative superpower-in-waiting, which lives in many centuries all at once. Which big brand in India (and how many globally) can claim to have been around 175 years ago and grown the way The Times of India has? We are often asked, how do you do it? The secret, we believe, lies in being contemporary and relevant — the "Old Lady of Boribunder" remains young at heart, nimble on her feet, and razor-sharp up there. Incredibly proud though we are of our heritage, we don't sail solely on it, but work continually to leave behind a legacy even more iconic than the one we've inherited.
Our heartbeat quickens and our adrenaline rushes on big banner headline days when we commandeer every resource at our disposal to bring our readers "360-degree saturation coverage", leaving little for the magazines to report or analyse. But the bigger challenge is to keep our readers engaged on days when a huge scam isn't being unearthed or a world cup isn't being won.
At its core, The Times of India is about society in transition, it is about the hopes and dreams of individuals, communities and nations. India is transforming — for better and for worse — in ways many of us cannot even begin to fathom. These changes are both invigorating and unsettling. We at The Times of India want to help you tread this churn by providing context, analysis, insight and perspective. In the breathless and often confusing world of "breaking news", we believe it is our duty to separate the signal from the noise by giving you the "why" and "what now" instead of just the "when, where, what and how". For our informed and sophisticated readers, concerns about the longer-term implications of a decision or development are likely to rise above the heat and dust of the here-and-now. It is our constant endeavour to add value in a manner that allows you to move seamlessly from information to intelligence to knowledge to understanding and ultimately, to a higher state of consciousness.
This paper is as much about ideas as it is about events. We are passionate about tracking and anticipating trends so that you can fashion them to your advantage. And we are committed to partnering you in becoming better than you thought you could be.
Our lives, and yours, are being reshaped at numerous intersections — of culture and society, malls and chawls, technology and law, urban and rural, politics and business, global and local, class and caste, talent and enterprise, sports and entertainment — and most worryingly, pelf and poverty, aspiration and frustration.
We are at a critical crossroads, and many of us are not quite sure if red, green, amber still mean stop, go, wait (or should we jump the red and be wary of the green?)
New demographic patterns are emerging; traditional family and organizational structures are crumbling; a huge generational shift is under way; smaller cities are rising; education is creating a new elite; and old notions of nationhood are being revisited. The ground is moving beneath our feet. For a growing number of Indians, this is an Age of Opportunity. The world is their oyster, their playground. What makes this new journey unpredictable is that the future can no longer be extrapolated from the past — there are no certitudes any more, and change is a discontinuous rather than a linear function.
By virtue of its sheer size and spread, The Times of India is, more by design than accident, many things to many people. Instead of being pigeonholed or defined narrowly, we have chosen to straddle the spectrum, from sex to spirituality. Like India, The Times of India too is a mass of niches, and like India, we've become adept at managing and marrying contradictions. This big-tent philosophy opens us up to all kinds of criticism. We have been accused of being "hard" and "soft" on the same government; of being "too negative" and "too positive " in our coverage; of being obsessed with cricket, crime and cinema — and yet being preoccupied with politics. (We have also been accused of being "too commercial", but how many of our readers know that several companies and governments have stopped advertising with us because we wrote something they didn't want us to, or we didn't write something they wanted us to. Our refusal to bend to their will has cost us hundreds of crores.)
Truth is, we have no masters and no hidden agendas. Our dharma is to serve our readers. Which is why we take constructive criticism seriously and listen when you speak. Political parties go to the people once every five years; we seek your mandate every day of the year. The relationship between The Times of India and its readers is a nuanced one. There exists an invisible line of tension between what the editor thinks the reader should be interested in, and what the reader thinks the editor should offer him or her. It is the editor's job to strike that delicate balance. What appears in the paper is often the product of hours of intense debate and introspection over content and tone. In the last few months, for instance, we have asked ourselves countless times, should we be carrying so many stories of rape on the front page? If there is indeed a right answer, we still haven't found it. We are told by those whose opinion we value, "We find these stories very disturbing. Can't you play them down?" But there is an equal and opposite view, again from people we respect, saying, "Please don't bury these stories, you need to keep the pressure on."
Reader interaction has always been central to The Times of India's way of life. Our "Letters to the Editor" column has been graced by unpaid correspondents such as M K Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar, Jinnah, Churchill, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, C Rajagopalachari, Indira Gandhi, Jayaprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia, Charan Singh, Bertrand Russell, Baden Powell, Nirad C Chaudhuri, Vijay Merchant, Malcolm Muggeridge and David Sassoon.
Many of our decisions, big and small, come from a place of wanting to do right by our readers. Some of you may not have even noticed that we no longer highlight reports of student suicides (unless there is a compelling reason to do so) because of the effect they may have on children who are already on edge, particularly during examinations and results. It was a decision we took knowing full well that readers might think, "Oh, TOI missed the story."
Much as we respect — and seek to reflect — the sentiments of our readers, we choose sometimes to swim against the tide of popular opinion. On Section 377, for instance, we ignored dire warnings that our campaign to decriminalize homosexuality would alienate our conservative readers. We went with our conviction that homosexuality must not constitute criminality.
Lord Curzon, who ran India as Viceroy at the turn of the last century, described The Times of India as "the leading paper in Asia". Later, TOI's account of Prince George's visit in 1921 was considered accurate enough to be incorporated as semi-official royal record. We are extremely conscious of our responsibility to be reliable and credible, but official stamps of approval, then or now, don't float our boat. The support and trust of our readers mean much more to us — in large part because we truly and sincerely believe in the primacy of the individual over the state. We have over the years shifted our sights from simply chronicling to interpreting and forecasting — and on certain issues, actively participating in the conversations that animate our communities and cities. The introduction of "Times View" across the news pages of the paper, including the front page, was aimed at shaping opinion and driving change. It would be immodest of us to recount the number of times when a "Times View" has impacted policy, led to new thinking, and triggered changes in law. Courts, governments and legislatures have time and again taken cognizance of our views and acted on them. We don't seek power or influence, but if we can use the columns of this paper to do good, it makes what we do so much more worthwhile.
It is this spirit of making a difference that has prompted us to launch such initiatives as The Times Of India Social Impact Awards, Teach India, Lead India, Aman ki Asha, Times Scholars, City of Angels and Know Your Rights, as well as edition-specific campaigns for women, children and the elderly. We stand for good governance and greater accountability from our elected servants, for gender equality, for stronger civil and civic rights, for liberal values, and for a world where the mind is without fear.
Increasingly, these efforts are being driven through our internet and mobile editions, where TOI's presence is enormous. (We are among the world's top 10 English newspapers online on every possible metric; on several, we are among the top 3 or 5.) We have been expanding our multi-platform presence quietly but dramatically, to reach new audiences and geographies as well as to deepen our engagement with existing readers through multiple touch points and heightened interactivity. As modes of digital delivery grow, the TOI ecosystem becomes ubiquitous and 24x7.
Whatever else changes, one thing won't: we will always keep you at the centre of our universe, we will be the wind beneath your wings. As long as the centre holds, things will never fall apart, the bond will never break. Nothing gives us greater joy than being told by readers that they cannot imagine a day in the life of India without The Times of India. As the sun slowly sets on a cricket legend who turns 40 tomorrow, The Times of India is ready to take fresh guard at 175. Stay with us for the Double, and beyond.
===================================================
TIMES OF INDIA BUILDING-THROUGH THE AGES -
Churchgate
Street, now known as Vir Nariman Road, in the Fort area of Bombay was
taken in the 1860s to form part of an album entitled 'Photographs of
India and Overland Route'. Churchgate Street runs from Horniman Circle
at the east end to what was originally named Marine Drive at the edge of
the Back Bay. Churchgate Station,
'Times of India'] Building, corner of Elphinstone Cir. - 1880 - Genl. Nassau Lees, Proprietor.-Photographer: E.O.S. and Company Medium: Photographic print Date: 1880-
![['Times of India'] Building, corner of Elphinstone Cir. - 1880 - Genl. Nassau Lees, Proprietor.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tEz3-CW0aNDX9Fo2telLmYpVMZJqTP26cZEnsol8KQHUhfg6juuksI9jnFBiUpquMgA3Nudrz01YV9LIf78ianP64ZM5FsJVLQGmMNQy4ZrFJMHoeoYU54w8Ql3S_iJ1z9BiSPYZ8=s0-d)
['Times of India'] Building opposite St Thomas's Cathedral, connected with Elph. Cir. [Elphinstone Circle] - July 1898 - Kane, Bennet & Co.--Photographer: E.O.S. and Company Medium: Photographic print Date: 1898-
![['Times of India'] Building opposite St Thomas's Cathedral, connected with Elph. Cir. [Elphinstone Circle] - July 1898 - Kane, Bennet & Co.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_utJyNPbKjD2z5gVk8cDc0UPj75E7Q0F6ZeCR08FF-fHojNQGEMnnsOEpD5Gfc1ZEGfOvlnLCFoIJgwemZ2on3f2cizMpZHYWDnOZJQYKujF-zp6Bnd651Tju45adNxdlaw4BRKKU4=s0-d)
'Times of India'] Building, corner of Elphinstone Cir. - 1880 - Genl. Nassau Lees, Proprietor.-Photographer: E.O.S. and Company Medium: Photographic print Date: 1880-
['Times of India'] Building opposite St Thomas's Cathedral, connected with Elph. Cir. [Elphinstone Circle] - July 1898 - Kane, Bennet & Co.--Photographer: E.O.S. and Company Medium: Photographic print Date: 1898-
Establishment [of 'Times of India'] - January 1898 - Kane, Bennett & Co-Photographer: E.O.S. and Company Medium: Photographic print Date: 1898
![Establishment [of 'Times of India'] - January 1898 - Kane, Bennett & Co.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sp7NWLevUoTJgc8PMF0v0n5Dj1h9t8KC-rqFFLnGRUi93nkynAbyYyy6mlaV_kTvsupkyiVxi42AAKgxYPhQhIgdI6CfpUoLF6eq2OzoEz8npPzuF80g-VYEI0fKhnoA8rPi99Xx4=s0-d)
This formal group portrait by E.O.S. and Company shows employees of the Times of India newspaper posed on the steps of Mumbai Town Hall on the occasion of the newspaper's Diamond Jubilee (60 years), November 1898. The newspaper was established in the 1830s following Lord Metcalfe's Act of 1835 which removed restrictions on the liberty of the Indian press. On the 3rd November 1838 the 'Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce' was launched in bi-weekly editions, on Saturdays and Wednesdays. It contained news of Europe, America and the sub-continent and was conveyed between India and Europe via regular steam ships. From 1850 the paper appeared in daily editions and in 1861 the 'Bombay Times' became the 'Times of India'. By the end of the 19th century the paper employed 800 people and had a wide circulation in India and Europe. The company was owned by Kane, Bennett & Co. at this period.
Times of India Employees - November 1898
This group portrait by E.O.S. and Company shows employees of the Times of India newspaper at Mumbai on the occasion of the newspaper's Diamond Jubilee (60 years), November 1898. The newspaper was established in the 1830s following Lord Metcalfe's Act of 1835 which removed restrictions on the liberty of the Indian press. On the 3rd November 1838 the 'Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce' was launched in bi-weekly editions, on Saturdays and Wednesdays. It contained news of Europe, America and the sub-continent and was conveyed between India and Europe via regular steam ships. From 1850 the paper appeared in daily editions and in 1861 the 'Bombay Times' became the 'Times of India'. By the end of the 19th century the paper employed 800 people and had a wide circulation in India and Europe.
Stereo and type casting room ['Times of India'], - November 1898.
![Stereo and type casting room ['Times of India'], - November 1898.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uCgyj2WYgtfEKr7zQBz5OeSXYH8BX3FQ3xsEmJQWUPYdwLHYt_Zl-Ac0UHHYSJJ6OsWdTnSakxNcGSRstvEJZVs3_1ysQlJNtfJuiVMT2AMwyFcDzAz2GOXtPOMxpakMVIk8iV1Q=s0-d)
Posted 13th July 2010 by bmmann
General office ['Times of India'], - November 1898.-Photographer: E.O.S. and Company Medium: Photographic print Date: 1898
Print
by E.O.S. and Company showing employees of the Times of India newspaper
at Mumbai taken on the occasion of the newspaper's Diamond Jubilee (60
years), November 1898. The newspaper was established in the 1830s
following Lord Metcalfe's Act of 1835 which removed restrictions on the
liberty of the Indian press. On the 3rd November 1838 the 'Bombay Times
and Journal of Commerce' was launched in bi-weekly editions, on
Saturdays and Wednesdays. It contained news of Europe, America and the
sub-continent and was conveyed between India and Europe via regular
steam ships. From 1850 the paper appeared in daily editions and in 1861
the 'Bombay Times' became the 'Times of India'. By the end of the 19th
century the paper employed 800 people and had a wide circulation in
India and Europe.![General office ['Times of India'], - November 1898.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_veKAoJPCKhE4bC5VyRu7KPfPcwr65HmzjDsJt5EdbUWWz8Wf18tDsNkZllmDwOjefnlIV8sk-yR0qm6ClMED--ukOXqNcFkU98eoBCvEU3PTwlMZ-hHM7sn-XrXhDPZD5Eu2vAKiE=s0-d)
Posted 13th July 2010 by bmmann
