Orient Blackswan Pvt. Ltd. (formerly Orient Longman India, commonly referred to as Orient Longman), is an Indian

publishing house Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

headquartered in

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India ...

Telangana Telangana (; , ) is a state in India situated on the south-central stretch of the Indian peninsula on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the eleventh-largest state and the twelfth-most populated state in India with a geographical area of and 3 ...

. The company publishes academic, professional and general works as well as school textbooks, of which the "Gulmohar" series of English-language schools books grew popular. It also publishes low cost reprints of foreign titles.

History

Established in 1948 as Longman Green by the UK publishing company

Longman Longman, also known as Pearson Longman, is a publishing company founded in London, England, in 1724 and is owned by Pearson PLC. Since 1968, Longman has been used primarily as an imprint by Pearson's Schools business. The Longman brand is also ...

, it was taken over by J. Rameshwar Rao, who bought the majority shareholding and became the company chairman in 1968. Rao retained the majority holding till 1984. The company's board included

Khushwant Singh Khushwant Singh (born Khushal Singh, 2 February 1915 – 20 March 2014) was an Indian author, lawyer, diplomat, journalist and politician. His experience in the 1947 Partition of India inspired him to write ''Train to Pakistan'' in 1956 (made ...

and the Patwardhans of

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

. The "Indianisation" of Orient Longman's management during this period was also reflected in its product, where Indian writers found an increasingly prominent place. Also during this period various subsidiaries came about such as Orion Books, and Gyan Publishings which sprang up as entrepreneurial enterprises from individuals based in Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, and Kolkata such as B.K. Todi, Saugat Biswas, Varun Tamble and many others.

Disputes

In 2006, the Pearson Education group, which holds a minority stake in Orient Longman as well as the rights to the "Longman" brand worldwide, sued Orient Longman asserting its claim on the brand. In 2008, Orient Longman agreed to drop the "Longman" suffix in an out-of-court settlement, and the company was renamed Orient Blackswan.

References

Bibliography

External links

* {{Authority control Book publishing companies of India Industries in Hyderabad, India