NEWSPAPER MIRROR TO SOCIETY.

Newspaper can be defined as a print medium for conveying current news of various information .

History of newspaper in India:
The first newspaper in India the Bengal Gazette was published in January 29, 1780 by James Augustus Hicky ,which was also known as”Calcutta Advertiser”. It was commonly known as “Bengal Gazette “. The first edition of the newspaper has two pages and was later expanded to page 4. Its size was 35 cm x 24 cm. East India Company did not considered Freedom of the Press good for society. They tried to curb the publication of newspapers. He was a very brave editor. He continued to criticize British authorities and publishing reports attacking East India Company officials for their way of working. British Authorities have arrested Hicky many times. Finally they finished his work of newspaper in 1782 and stopped publishing. Hicky was asked to leave Country. He was sent back to England. A copy of the Bengal Gazette is still preserved in the National Library of Calcutta and the British Museum in London.

Following in Hickey’s footsteps in 1780, a second newspaper was launched “The Indian Gazette” and “Calcutta Gazette” which begins publishing in 1784 and the “Bengali Journal” was started in 1785 which is also the third and fourth newspaper from Calcutta. The previous four newspaper were all published in English. Slowly Newspapers also begun to issue from other parts of the country in different languages and. The Tuesday “Madras Courier” (1785) and “Madras Gazette” (1795) starting from Madras. From Mumbai, “Bombay Herald” was started in 1789. The strict press regulations and censorship imposed by the UK hindered publication of more newspapers in India.In 1818, Lord Hastings abolished these strict censorship measures which leads to the appearance of many new newspapers in various Indian languages. Raja Ram Mohan Roy, who is known to have fought for the freedom of the press, edited a Persian weekly newspaper called “Mirat-ul-Akhbar”. But the editors of this newspaper were foreigners, not Indians. The first Indian language newspaper published by an Indian was “The Bengali Gazette” which was started in Calcutta by Gangadhar
Bhattacharjee in 1816. Pandit Jugal Kishore started Udant Martand the first Hindi newspaper published in India beginning on May 30, 1826, in Calcutta the weekly was published every Tuesday .

Importance of newspaper in India Freedom Struggle:
The newspaper and the press played a very important crutial role in the struggle for independence. The newspapers made the Indian public aware to the cruelty of the British Empire on the people . The press was the main tool for carrying out political tasks, propagating, political education, forming and spreading national ideology, mobilizing and consolidating national public opinion. The press is a powerful weapon in nationalist struggles, and Indian nationalists have led the struggle through the help of press. In fact, many of the great leaders of the freedom movement became journalists themselves and used the press as an instrument to spread their ideas to the masses and people in different parts of the country.

The Vernacular Press Act of 1878, against Indian-language newspapers, was passed in a meeting of the Royal Legislative Council. The law orders the seizure of a newspaper’s publications, papers, and other materials if the government believes the newspaper is publishing instigating material that could be harmful for the government. The Indian press enjoyed considerable freedom until 1908. However, due to the great growth of the nationalist movement, the Press Act was passed in 1908 and the Indian Press Act of 1910. Till 1930 the Indian press enjoyed relative freedom to give free opinion. However, the Press Act of 1932 and the Foreign Relations Act of 1932 refused India’s press freedom. The press was used as an effective weapon in the hands of social reform groups to expose social evils such as class restriction, child marriage, the prohibition of widows remarrying, social inequalities, laws and regulations.At that time it was very useful to uplift the society.



Newspaper at present:
Newspapers today occupy an important place in the world. The presence of newspapers is inevitable in today time. They are the reflections of the world. The press is considered the fourth pillar of democracy. The press is the most powerful of the powerful. They are defenders of truth and human rights. They act as spokespersons for the public. They are the link between the people and their government. It was still preferred by people over other media platforms because of its reliability, at a time when media was seen as a fake system that didn’t work properly.

“A good newspaper, I suppose , is a nation talking to itself ”

By Arthur Miller