Mass media in India consists of several different means of communication:

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

, cinema,

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

s and

magazine A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), content forms. Magazines are generally fin ...

s. Indian media was active since the late 18th century; the print media started in India as early as 1780. Radio broadcasting began in 1927. Today much of the media is controlled by large, corporations, which reap revenue from advertising, subscriptions, and sale of

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

ed material. India has over 500 satellite channels (more than 80 are news channels) and 70,000 newspapers, the biggest newspaper market in the world with over 100 million copies sold each day. The French NGO

Reporters Without Borders Reporters Without Borders (RWB; ; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organisation, non-governmental organization headquartered in Paris, which focuses on safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its a ...

compiles and publishes an annual ranking of countries based upon the organisation's assessment of its

Press Freedom Index The World Press Freedom Index (WPFI) is an annual ranking of Country, countries compiled and published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) since 2002 based upon the non-governmental organization's own assessment of the countries' Freedom of the ...

. In its 2023 downgraded India by 11 points to 161st level out of 180 countries. Indian media freedom now stands below

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

Somalia Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, th ...

and

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

. It stated its reason saying "The violence against journalists, the politically partisan media and the concentration of media ownership all demonstrate that press freedom is in crisis in “the world’s largest democracy”, ruled since 2014 by Prime Minister

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician who has served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India since 2014. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Par ...

, the leader of the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; , ) is a political party in India and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. BJP emerged out from Syama Prasad Mukherjee's ...

(BJP) and the embodiment of the Hindu nationalist right." In 2022, India was ranked 150th, which declined from 133rd rank in 2016. It stated that this was due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party and their followers of

Hindutva Hindutva (; ) is a Far-right politics, far-right political ideology encompassing the cultural justification of Hindu nationalism and the belief in establishing Hindu hegemony within India. The political ideology was formulated by Vinayak Da ...

having greater exertion of control of the media.

Freedom House Freedom House is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. It is best known for political advocacy surrounding issues of democracy, Freedom (political), political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, wi ...

, a US-based NGO stated in its 2021 report that harassment of journalists increased under Modi's administration. The English-language media of India are described as traditionally

left-leaning Centre-left politics is the range of left-wing political ideologies that lean closer to the political centre. Ideologies commonly associated with it include social democracy, social liberalism, progressivism, and green politics. Ideas commonl ...

liberal, which has been a point of friction recently due to an upsurge in popularity of Hindu nationalist politics. According to

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

, "A look at Indian news channels - be it English or Hindi - shows that fairly one-sided news prevails. And that side is BJP and Hindutva." '' Hicky's Bengal Gazette'', founded in 1780, was the first Indian newspaper.

Auguste and Louis Lumière The Lumière brothers (, ; ), Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumière (19 October 1862 – 10 April 1954) and Louis Jean Lumière (5 October 1864 – 6 June 1948), were French manufacturers of photography equipment, best known for their ' motion ...

moving pictures were screened in

Bombay Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial centre, financial capital and the list of cities i ...

during July 1895, and

radio broadcasting Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio signal, audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a lan ...

began in 1927.

Press Council of Indian act 1978

Where the norms are breached and the freedom is defiled by unprofessional conduct, a way must exist to check and control it. But control by the government or official authorities may prove destructive of this freedom. Therefore, the best way is to let the peers of the profession, assisted by a few discerning laymen, regulate it through a properly structured, representative, and impartial machinery. Hence, the Press Council of India was established.

Overview

The traditional print media, but also the television media, are largely family-owned and often partake in

self-censorship Self-censorship is the act of censoring or classifying one's own discourse, typically out of fear or deference to the perceived preferences, sensibilities, or infallibility of others, and often without overt external pressure. Self-censorship is c ...

, primarily due to political ties by the owner and the establishment. However, the new media are generally more professional and corporate-owned, though these, too, have been acquired or affiliated with established figures. At the same time, the Indian media, viewed as "feisty," have also not reported on issues of the media itself.

Print

The first newspaper printed in India was '' Hicky's Bengal Gazette'', started in 1780 under the

British Raj The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule ...

by James Augustus Hicky. Other newspapers such as ''The India Gazette'', ''The Calcutta Gazette'', '' The Madras Courier'' (1785), and '' The Bombay Herald'' (1789) soon followed. These newspapers carried news of the areas under the British rule. The '' Bombay Samachar'', founded in 1822 and printed in Gujarati is the oldest newspaper in Asia still in print. On 30 May 1826 '' Udant Martand'' (The Rising Sun), the first

Hindi-language Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of the Government of India, alongside English, and is the ''lin ...

newspaper published in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, started from Calcutta (now

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

), published every Tuesday by Pt. Jugal Kishore Shukla. Even after independence from Britain in 1947, the English-language papers were prominent due to a number of reasons. The telegraphic circuits of news agencies used the Roman Alphabet and the

Morse code Morse code is a telecommunications method which Character encoding, encodes Written language, text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code i ...

, giving the English press an advantage in speed. The speed of typesetting was also much slower in Indian languages because of the

Diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

s. Also, the press largely relied on advertisements of imported goods for revenue, and the foreign advertisers naturally preferred English-language media. The language of the administration had also remained English. Currently, India publishes about 1,000

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

dailies that have a total circulation of about 80 million copies. English, the

second language A second language (L2) is a language spoken in addition to one's first language (L1). A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a foreign language. A speaker's dominant language, which ...

in terms of a number of daily newspapers, has about 250 dailies with a circulation of about 40 million copies. The prominent Hindi newspapers are '' Dainik Jagran'', '' Dainik Bhaskar'', ''Amar Ujala'', ''Devbhumi Mirror'', ''

Navbharat Times ''Navbharat Times'' (NBT; ) is a Hindi newspaper distributed in Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow and Kanpur. It is from the stable of Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd (BCCL), which also publishes other dailies including ''The Times of India'', ''The Economic ...

'', '' Hindustan Dainik'', ''

Prabhat Khabar is a Hindi-language daily newspaper published in Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal, with circulation in some other states in India, including parts of Orissa. It was founded in August 1984 in Ranchi, in Bihar. With the formation of Jharkhand ...

'', ''

Rajasthan Patrika ''Rajasthan Patrika'' () is an Indian Hindi- Rajasthani language daily newspaper. It was founded by Karpoor Chandra Kulish in 1956 and published as ''Rajasthan Patrika'' in Delhi and Rajasthan, and as ''Patrika'' in 9 other states. As per Ind ...

'', and ''Dainik Aaj''. In terms of readership, '' Dainik Jagran'' is the most popular Hindi daily with a total readership (TR) of 70,377,000, according to

IRS The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting Taxation in the United States, U.S. federal taxes and administerin ...

Q1 2019. '' Dainik Bhaskar'' is the second most popular with a total readership of 51,405,000. ''Amar Ujala'' with a TR of 47,645,000, ''

'' with a TR of 18,036,000 and ''

'' with a TR of 14,102,000 are placed at the next three positions. The total readership of the top 10 Hindi dailies is estimated at 188.68 million, nearly five times that of the top 10 English dailies that have a 38.76 million total readership. The prominent English newspapers are ''

The Times of India ''The Times of India'' (''TOI'') is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by the Times Group. It is the List of newspapers in India by circulation, third-largest newspaper in India by circulation an ...

'', founded in 1838 as ''The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce'' by Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd, a colonial enterprise now owned by an Indian conglomerate;

The Times Group Bennett Coleman and Company Limited (BCCL), d/b/a the Times Group, is an Indian media conglomerate based in Mumbai. Notable media properties owned and operated by the group include India's largest selling daily English-language newspaper ''The ...

. '' The Hindustan Times'' was founded in 1924 during the

Indian Independence Movement The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events in South Asia with the ultimate aim of ending British Raj, British colonial rule. It lasted until 1947, when the Indian Independence Act 1947 was passed. The first nationalistic ...

Hindustan ''Hindūstān'' ( English: /ˈhɪndustæn/ or /ˈhɪndustɑn/, ; ) was a historical region, polity, and a name for India, historically used simultaneously for northern Indian subcontinent and the entire subcontinent, used in the modern day ...

' being the historical name of

), it is published by HT Media Ltd. ''

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It was founded as a weekly publication in 1878 by the Triplicane Six, becoming a daily in 1889. It is one of the India ...

'' was founded in 1878 by a group known as the

Triplicane Thiruvallikeni known as Triplicane, is one of the oldest neighbourhoods of Chennai, India. It is situated on the Bay of Bengal coast and about from Fort St George. The average elevation of the neighbourhood is 14 metres above Mean sea leve ...

Six consisting of four law students and two teachers in

Madras Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...

(now

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

), it is now owned by The Hindu Group. In the 1950s, 214 daily newspapers were published in the country.Thomas, 105 Out of these, 44 were English language dailies while the rest were published in various

regional In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

and national languages. This number rose to 3,805 dailies in 1993 with the total number of newspapers published in the country having reached 35,595. The main regional newspapers of India include the

Marathi language Marathi (; , 𑘦𑘨𑘰𑘙𑘲, , ) is a Classical languages of India, classical Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language predominantly spoken by Marathi people in the Indian state of Maharashtra and is also spoken in Goa, and parts of Guj ...

Lokmat ''Lokmat'' ( ) is a Marathi-language newspaper published in Maharashtra, India. Founded in 1971 by Jawaharlal Darda, it is the largest read Marathi-language newspaper in India. and has presence in print, digital, TV and events.Gujarati Language Gujarati ( ; , ) is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Indian state of Gujarat and spoken predominantly by the Gujarati people. Gujarati is descended from Old Western Rājasthāni, Old Gujarati (). In India, it is one of the 22 Languages with ...

'' Gujarat Samachar'', the

Malayalam language Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...

Malayala Manorama '' Manorama'' is a morning newspaper in Malayalam published from Kottayam, Kerala, India by the Malayala Manorama Company Limited. Currently headed by Mammen Mathew, it was first published as a weekly on 14 March 1888, and currently has a rea ...

'', the

Tamil language Tamil (, , , also written as ''Tamizhil'' according to linguistic pronunciation) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. It is one of the longest-surviving classical languages in the world,. "Tamil is one of ...

'' Daily Thanthi'', the

Telugu language Telugu (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language native to the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where it is also the official language. Spoken by about 96 million people (2022), Telugu is the most widely spoken member of ...

'' Eenadu'', the

Kannada language Kannada () is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, an ...

Vijaya Karnataka ''Vijaya Karnataka'' is a Kannada newspaper published from a number of cities in Karnataka. The newspaper is published from Bengaluru, Hubballi, Mangaluru, Shivamogga, Kalaburagi, Gangavathi, Belagavi, Davanagere, Hassan, Chitradurga. It was ...

'' and the

Bengali language Bengali, also known by its endonym and exonym, endonym Bangla (, , ), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language belonging to the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. ...

Anandabazar Patrika ''Anandabazar Patrika'' is an Indian Bengali-language daily newspaper owned by the ABP Group. Its main competitors are ''Bartaman'', '' Ei Samay'', '' Sangbad Pratidin'', " Aajkal", " Jago Bangla", " ganashakti" and " dainik Statesman". Histo ...

''.

The Dispatch

The Dispatch currently operates from Jammu and Kashmir and covers events in the northern states of India, focusing on

Kashmir Kashmir ( or ) is the Northwestern Indian subcontinent, northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term ''Kashmir'' denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir P ...

in particular. Newspaper sales in the country increased by 11.22% in 2007. By 2007, 62 of the world's best-selling newspaper dailies were published in China, Japan, and

. India consumed 99 million newspaper copies as of 2007, making it the second-largest market in the world for newspapers.

Dailies in India

*Top 10 Hindi Dailies :''Ref: Indian Readership Survey Q4 2019 pdf'' *Top 10 English dailies :''Ref: Indian Readership Surve
Q1 2019 [1
/nowiki>">">Q1 2019 [1
/nowiki>/small>'' *Top 10 regional dailies :''Ref: Indian Readership Survey Q1 201

/small>''

Magazines in India

*Top 10 Hindi magazines :''Ref: Indian Readership Survey Q1 201

/small>'' *Top 10 English magazines :''Ref: Indian Readership Survey Q1 201

/small>'' *Top 10 regional magazines :''Ref: Indian Readership Survey Q1 201

/small>''

Broadcasting

Radio broadcasting was initiated in 1927 but became a state responsibility only in 1930.Schwartzberg (2008) In 1937 it was given the name ''All India Radio'' and since 1957 it has been called '' Akashvani (radio broadcaster), Akashvani''. Limited duration of television programming began in 1959, and complete broadcasting followed in 1965. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting owned and maintained the audio-visual apparatus—including the television channel ''

Doordarshan Doordarshan (), abbreviated as DD, is India's State-owned enterprise, state-owned public broadcasting, public television broadcaster. Established by the Government of India on 15 September 1959, it is owned by the Ministry of Information and B ...

''—in the country prior to the economic reforms of 1991.Thomas, 106 Following the economic reforms satellite television channels from around the world—including the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

CNBC CNBC is an American List of business news channels, business news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group, a unit of Comcast's NBCUniversal. The network broadcasts live business news and analysis programming during the morning, Day ...

, and other foreign television channels gained a foothold in the country.Thomas, 106–107 47 million households with television sets emerged in 1993, which was also the year when

Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian - American retired business magnate, investor, and media mogul. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of List of assets owned by News Corp, local, national, a ...

entered the Indian market.Thomas, 107

Satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

and cable television soon gained a foothold. ''

'', in turn, initiated reforms and modernisation. With 1,400 television stations as of 2009, the country ranks 4th in the list of countries by number of television broadcast stations.''CIA World Factbook: Field Listing – Television broadcast stations.''
/ref>

Communications

The Indian Government acquired ES EVM computers from the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, which were used in large companies and research laboratories.Desai (2006) Tata Consultancy Services – established in 1968 by the

Tata Group The Tata Group () is an Indian multinational conglomerate group of companies headquartered in Mumbai. Established in 1868, it is India's largest business conglomerate, with products and services in over 160 countries, and operations in 100 c ...

– were the country's largest software producers during the 1960s. The ' microchip revolution' of the 1980s had convinced both

Indira Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (Given name, ''née'' Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and stateswoman who served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India from 1966 to 1977 and again from 1980 un ...

and her successor

Rajiv Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi (20 August 1944 – 21 May 1991) was an Indian statesman and pilot who served as the prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989. He took office after the Assassination of Indira Gandhi, assassination of his mother, then–prime ...

that electronics and telecommunications were vital to India's growth and development.

MTNL Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (abbreviated as MTNL) () is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited. Headquartered in New Delhi, India. MTNL provides services in the metro cities of Mumbai and New Delhi in India and in the i ...

underwent technological improvements.Chand, 86 Between 1986 and 1987, the

Indian government The Government of India (ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of 36 states and union territor ...

embarked upon the creation of three wide-area computer networking schemes: INDONET (intended to serve the

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

mainframes in India), NICNET (network for the

National Informatics Centre The National Informatics Centre (NIC) is an Indian government department under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). It provides infrastructure, IT Consultancy, IT Services including but not limited to architecture, ...

), and the academic research oriented Education and Research Network (ERNET).Wolcott & Goodman, 568 The Indian economy underwent economic reforms in 1991, leading to a new era of

globalisation Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...

and international economic integration.Sharma (2006) Economic growth of over 6% annually was seen between 1993 and 2002. The economic reforms were driven in part by significant the internet usage in India.Wolcott & Goodman, 564 The new administration under Atal Bihari Vajpayee which placed the development of

Information technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...

among its top five priorities— formed the Indian National Task Force on Information Technology and Software Development.Wolcott & Goodman, 564–565 Internet gained a foothold in India by 1998. India had a total of 100 million Internet users—comprising 8.5% of the country's population—by 2010.Se
''The World Factbook: Internet users''
an
''Internet World Stats''
.

had a total of 34 million fixed lines in use by 2011.''CIA World Factbook: Rank Order – Telephones – main lines in use''.
/ref> In the fixed line arena, BSNL and

are the incumbents in their respective areas of operation and continue to enjoy the dominant service provider status in the domain of fixed line services. BSNL controls 79% of fixed line share in the country. In the

mobile telephony Mobile telephony is the provision of wireless telephone services to mobile phones, distinguishing it from fixed-location telephony provided via landline phones. Traditionally, telephony specifically refers to voice communication, though th ...

sector,

Bharti Airtel Bharti Airtel Limited is an Indian Multinational corporation, multinational Telecommunications in India, telecommunications company based in New Delhi. It operates in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa, as well as the Channel Islands. ...

controls 24.3% subscriber base followed by Reliance Communications with 18.9%,

Vodafone Vodafone Group Public Limited Company () is a British Multinational company, multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates Service (economic ...

with 18.8%, BSNL] with 12.7% subscriber base as of June 2009.From the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India se
''Study paper on State of Indian Telecom Network''
an
''Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Press Release No. 89 /2006''.
India had a total of 880 million mobile phone connections by 2011.
/ref> Total fixed-line and wireless subscribers reached 688 million as of August 2010.

Motion pictures

The history of film in India begins with the screening of Auguste and Louis Lumière's moving pictures in Bombay in July 1895.Burra & Rao, 252 '' Raja Harishchandra'', a full-length feature film, was initiated in 1912 and completed later. '' Alam Ara'' (released 14 March 1931), directed by

Ardeshir Irani Khan Bahadur Ardeshir Irani (5 December 1886 – 14 October 1969) was a writer, director, producer, actor, film distributor, film showman and cinematographer in the silent and sound eras of early Indian cinema. He is considered one of the gre ...

, was the first Indian movie with dialogue.Burra & Rao, 253 Indian films were soon being followed throughout Southeast Asia and the Middle East—where the modest clothing and subdued sexuality in these films were found to be acceptable to the sensibilities of audiences in the various Islamic countries of the region.Watson (2008) As cinema as a medium gained popularity in India, as many as 1,000 films in the various

languages of India Languages of India belong to several list of language families, language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 78.05% of Indian people, Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians; both fami ...

were produced annually. Hollywood also gained a foothold in India with

special effect Special effects (often abbreviated as F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the fictional events in a story or virtual world. ...

s films such as ''

Jurassic Park ''Jurassic Park'', later referred to as ''Jurassic World'', is an American science fiction media franchise created by Michael Crichton, centered on a disastrous attempt to create a theme park of De-extinction#Cloning, cloned dinosaurs. It bega ...

'' (1993) and ''

Speed In kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as ''v'') of an object is the magnitude of the change of its position over time or the magnitude of the change of its position per unit of time; it is thus a non-negative scalar quantity. Intro ...

'' (1994) being specially appreciated by local audiences. Expatriates throughout the United Kingdom and the United States continued to give rise to international audiences for Indian movies, which, according to a 2008

Encyclopædia Britannica The is a general knowledge, general-knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, ...

entry on

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, is primarily produced in Mumbai. The popular term Bollywood is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (former name of Mumbai) and "Cinema of the United States, Hollywood". The in ...

, "continued to be formulaic story lines, expertly choreographed fight scenes, spectacular song-and-dance routines, emotion-charged melodrama, and larger-than-life heroes".Encyclopædia Britannica (2008), ''Bollywood''. Present-day

produces the most films of any country in the world. Major media investors in the country are production houses such as

Yash Raj Films Yash Raj Films (YRF) is an Indian film production and distribution company founded by filmmaker Yash Chopra in 1970. Since 2012, it has been led by his son Aditya Chopra. The company mainly produces and distributes Hindi films. History In 19 ...

, Dharma Productions, Aamir Khan Productions,

Disney India The Walt Disney Company India, also known as Disney India, is the Indian subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. In March 2019, The Walt Disney Company India became India's biggest television broadcaster af ...

and Reliance Entertainment. Most of these productions are funded by investors, since there are limited banking and credit facilities in India for the

motion picture industry The film industry or motion picture industry comprises the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking, i.e., film production companies, film studios, cinematography, animation, film production, screenwriting, pre-production, post- ...

. Many international corporations, such as

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...

(formerly UTV) and Viacom ( Network18 Studios), have entered the nation's media industry on a large scale.

Digital media

List of notable publications

* '' Sainik Samachar'' * '' Indian Military Review''

Digital-only publications

* DFRAC * Cobrapost * Dailyhunt (aggregator) *

Firstpost Firstpost is an Indian news website owned by Network18 Group, which also runs CNN-News18 and CNBC TV18. It has posted misinformation on multiple occasions. The Network 18 group was originally owned by Raghav Bahl. In January 2012, the gro ...

* Khabar Lahariya * Newslaundry *

Oneindia Oneindia.com is an Indian news website established in January 2006 by BG Mahesh. The website provides news updates, information on sports, events, travel, entertainment, business, lifestyle, videos, and classifieds in seven different Indian lang ...

* People's Archive of Rural India *

Pinkvilla Pinkvilla is an Indian entertainment and lifestyle platform. As of June 2022, Pinkvilla has over 50,000,000 visitors on its website and app. Overview Pinkvilla covers entertainment and lifestyle stories. Its coverage extends to Hindi cinema, ...

* ScoopWhoop * SheThePeople * Scroll.in * The Better India * Two Circles * The Lallantop *

The News Minute ''The News Minute'' is an Indian digital news platform based in Bangalore, Karnataka. It was founded by Vignesh Vellore who is also the current CEO in 2014. Apart from Karnataka, it also has bureaus in the states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, ...

* ThePrint *

The Quint ''The Quint'' is an English and Hindi language Indian general news and opinion website founded by Raghav Bahl and Ritu Kapur after their exit from Network18. The publication's journalists have won three Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism ...

The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American Crime fiction, crime Drama (film and television), drama television series created and primarily written by the American author and former police reporter David Simon for the cable network HBO. The series premiered o ...

Ownership and funding

Digital media is opening up to paywalls and other subscription-based models. However, a majority of readers still do not pay for the content they read, causing media houses to rely on other means of funding. The Independent and Public Spirited Media Trust is a syndicate that promotes media in India with the aim of creating a news content creation network. It was founded in 2015 and funds organisations such as

, IndiaSpend, CGNet Swara, Alt News, and

The Caravan ''The Caravan'' is an Indian English-language, long-form narrative journalism magazine covering politics and culture. It was initially launched in 1940 by Vishwa Nath, becoming a prominent monthly magazine before ceasing publication in 1988. T ...

. Omidyar Network has invested in Scroll.in and Newslaundry. Odisha TV is owned by the Panda Family, Baijayant Jay Panda. NewsLive in Assam is run by the wife of

Himanta Biswa Sarma Himanta Biswa Sarma (born 1 February 1969) is an Indian politician and lawyer serving as the 15th and current Chief Minister of Assam since 2021. A former member of the Indian National Congress, Sarma joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on 23 Au ...

. ''The Caravan'' points out that

NDTV New Delhi Television Ltd is an Indian news media company focusing on broadcast and digital news publication. It was founded in 1984 by economist Prannoy Roy and journalist Radhika Roy. NDTV began as a production house for news segments, ...

, News Nation,

India TV India TV is a Hindi television news channel based in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India. The channel was launched on 20 May 2004 by Rajat Sharma and his wife Ritu Dhawan. The channel is a subsidiary of Independent News Service, which was co-founded ...

, News24 and Network18 are linked to Reliance. Another Indian billionaire businessman who funds media is Subhash Chandra.

Funding ideology

Investor

Rohini Nilekani Rohini Nilekani (born 1960) is an Indian writer, author and philanthropist. She is the founder of Arghyam Foundation, a non-profit that focuses on water and sanitation issues, founded in 2001. She also chairs the Akshara Foundation, which focuse ...

explains her ideology as follows:

Criticism

Some sections of Indian media—controlled by businessmen, politicians, and government

bureaucrat A bureaucrat is a member of a bureaucracy and can compose the administration of any organization of any size, although the term usually connotes someone within an institution of government. The term ''bureaucrat'' derives from "bureaucracy", wh ...

s—are facing criticism for biased, motivated reporting, behaving as one-party-owned or governing-party-owned outlets, and selective presentation. After the devastating earthquake in Nepal on 25 April 2015, in spite of

helping, tweets from

Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...

trended that effectively said, "Go home, Indian media". Disturbed by corruption, Delhi Chief Minister

Arvind Kejriwal Arvind Kejriwal (; born 16 August 1968) is an Indian politician, activist and former bureaucrat, who served as the 7th Chief Minister of Delhi. He was the chief minister from 2013 to 2014 and from 2015 to 2024. He is also the national conve ...

made a suggestion on 3 May 2015 to put Indian media outlets on public trial. On 8 May 2015, the then- I & B Minister, Arun Jaitley, echoed similar rhetoric, saying that there was a "flood of channels but dearth of facts". A lot of mainstream media channels have lately been accused of printing and telecasting unverified and biased information which they retracted later. In a few instances, content from parody accounts on Twitter were cited as sources. Indian mainstream media has often been accused of showing sensationalized news items. In March 2018, the then-

Chief Justice of India The chief justice of India (CJI) is the chief judge of the Supreme Court of India and the highest-ranking officer of the Indian judiciary. The Constitution of India grants power to the President of India to appoint, as recommended by the outg ...

Dipak Misra said that, "journalists cannot write anything they imagine and behave as if they are sitting in some pulpit".

Godi media Godi media (; ; idiomatic equivalent: 'lapdog media') is a term coined and popularised by veteran Indian journalist Ravish Kumar to describe biased Indian print and TV news media, which has openly supported the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party g ...

is a pejorative term coined and popularised by former

journalist Ravish Kumar referring to sensationalist, biased Indian mainstream media outlets which have supported the ruling BJP government of India since

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

. In a speech in July 2022, Chief Justice of India N. V. Ramana criticized Indian media outlets and accused them of running

Kangaroo court Kangaroo court is an informal pejorative term for a court that ignores recognized standards of law or justice, carries little or no official standing in the territory within which it resides, and is typically convened ad hoc. A kangaroo court ma ...

s and running agenda-driven debates without any accountability, which he thinks is bad for democracy. A report by Oxfam and Newslaundry found out that general category employees constitute around 90% of leadership positions in the Indian media, which means that marginalized communities like

Dalit Dalit ( from meaning "broken/scattered") is a term used for untouchables and outcasts, who represented the lowest stratum of the castes in the Indian subcontinent. They are also called Harijans. Dalits were excluded from the fourfold var ...

Adivasi The Adivasi (also transliterated as Adibasi) are heterogeneous tribal groups across the Indian subcontinent. The term is a recent invention from the 20th century and is now widely used as a self-designation by groups classified as Scheduled Tr ...

s and

Bahujan ''Bahujan'' is a Pali language, Pali term frequently found in Buddhist literature, Buddhist texts, with a literal meaning of "the many", or "the majority". In a modern context, it refers to the combined population of the Scheduled Castes, Schedule ...

s do not have adequate representation. Indian media has also been criticized internationally for spreading misinformation and false claims during the 2025 skirmishes with Pakistan. One well-known Indian media outlet was slammed for spreading rumors about Pakistan's cities being captured by the

Indian Air Force The Indian Air Force (IAF) (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the air force, air arm of the Indian Armed Forces. Its primary mission is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct aerial warfare during armed conflicts. It was officially established on 8 Octob ...

, which in reality never happened.

References

Bibliography

* Burra, Rani Day & Rao, Maithili (2006), "Cinema", ''Encyclopaedia of India'' ''(vol. 1)'' edited by Stanley Wolpert, pp. 252–259, Thomson Gale, . * Chand, Vikram K. (2006), ''Reinventing public service delivery in India: Selected Case Studies'',

Sage Publications Sage Publishing, formerly SAGE Publications, is an American independent academic publishing company, founded in 1965 in New York City by Sara Miller McCune and now based in the Newbury Park neighborhood of Thousand Oaks, California. Sage ...

, . * Desai, Ashok V. (2006), "Information and other Technology Development", ''Encyclopaedia of India (vol. 2)'' edited by Stanley Wolpert, pp. 269–273, Thomson Gale, . * Schwartzberg, Joseph E. (2008), ''India'',

. * Sharma, Shalendra D. (2006), "Globalisation", ''Encyclopaedia of India (vol. 2)'' edited by Stanley Wolpert, pp. 146–149, Thomson Gale, . * Thomas, Raju G. C. (2006), "Media", ''Encyclopaedia of India (vol. 3)'' edited by Stanley Wolpert, pp. 105–107, Thomson Gale, . * Watson, James L. (2008), ''Globalisation'',

. * Wolcott, P. & Goodman, S. E. (2003), ''Global Diffusion of the Internet – I India: Is the Elephant Learning to Dance?'', Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 11: 560–646.