India Today

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India Today
India Today logo.png
IndiaToday-20-20061218.jpg
30th anniversary issue of India Today
Editor-in-chief Aroon Purie
Madhu Trehan (founding editor)
Categories News magazine
Circulation 1,600,000 [1]
PublisherLiving Media India Limited
FounderVidya Purie
First issue1–15 December 1975
Company Living Media
Country India
Based in Noida, Uttar Pradesh [2]
LanguageEnglish
Website indiatoday.in
ISSN 0254-8399

India Today is a weekly Indian English-language news magazine published by Living Media India Limited. [3] [4] It is the most widely circulated magazine in India, with a readership of close to 8 million. [5] The magazine has close ties with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP. [6] In 2014, India Today launched a new online opinion-orientated site called the DailyO. [7]

Contents

History

India Today was established in 1975 [8] by Vidya Vilas Purie (owner of Thompson Press), with his daughter Madhu Trehan as its editor and his son Aroon Purie as its publisher. [9] [10] At present, India Today is also published in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu. The India Today news channel was launched on 22 May 2015.

In October 2017, Aroon Purie passed control of the India Today Group to his daughter, Kallie Purie. [11]

On 25 March 2024, Gulf News announced their recent partnership extablished between the platforms, stating they will begin distribution the India Today magazine in the Middle East, thereby expanding its reach to the Indian diaspora in the UAE. [12]

Fake news

India Today was caught spreading fake news on multiple occasions, often serving a right-wing and Hindu supremacist narrative.

In 2017, India Today propagated fake news relating to the details of Paresh Mesta's murder. [13] After Alt News pointed out the inaccuracy of the information, India Today quietly pulled down the story. [14]

Also in 2017, India Today reported that Lalu Prasad had been acquitted by a CBI court in the fodder scam. It turned out that Lalu Prasad had actually been convicted. [15]

In may 2017, India Today reported that Major Nitin Gogoi, who was in the news after he had used a Kashmiri citizen as a human shield during polling in J&K had been given a clean chit by the Army. This claim was refuted by the army itself which said that the “journalist be advised to corroborate factual information from official sources when reporting on sensitive military issues and this news report may, therefore, accordingly be corrected”. [16]

In January 2018, after violence in Kasganj, U.P on Republic Day led to the killing of Chandan Gupta, reports began to spread that apart from Gupta, another youth, Rahul Upadhyay had been killed due to the violence after he succumbed to his injuries in a hospital. Among those at the forefront of spreading this information was Abhijit Majumder, managing editor of Mail Today whose tweet was retweeted more than 1,700 times. It turned out that the ‘deceased’ person, Rahul Upadhyay was alive. He was not even at the scene of the violence on the said day. [17] [18] Majumder later issued a clarification and deleted his tweet.

Also in January 2018, India Today used a 2-year old video to report Pakistani mortar fire [19]

In January 2021, India Today consulting editor Rajdeep Sardesai reported on air and on Twitter that a farmer, identified in some reports as Navneet (or Navneet Singh), had been “killed allegedly in police firing” during the Republic Day tractor rally at ITO, New Delhi. Police later said the death occurred when the tractor overturned while attempting to breach barricades, and video emerged that contradicted the claim of police shooting; Sardesai deleted the tweet, retracted the claim, and India Today took him off air for two weeks and docked a month’s salary. [20] [21] [22]

In September 2025, India Today falsely reported that Sushila Karki was chosen Prime Minister of Nepal by Gen Z protestors via a vote on Discord, putting a strong emphasis on the fact that the organizer could not verify the nationality of the people taking part in the vote. [23] This vote was in reality only a way for the organization Youth Against Corruption to chose which candidate to support. Sushila Karki was actually appointed by president Ramchandra Paudel "based on the recommendation of the country’s major political parties" according to Sunil Bahadur Thapa, the presidential adviser who announced Ms. Karki’s appointment before she officially took her oath. [24] Shaswot Lamichhane, a channel moderator who helped establish the Discord server and has represented Youth Against Corruption in meetings with the military said that the server "did not represent the whole country, and its goal was only to suggest an interim leader who could oversee elections." [25]

Angshukanta Chakraborty, a journalist working for the India Today group, was asked to leave for tweeting that news organisations shielding journalists who spread fake news should be tried in court. [26]

Civic survey

GDB Parameters

Gross Domestic Behavior, a civic survey is conducted by the India Today on the following 4 parameters where overall ranking of states as well as ranking on these 4 individual parameters is published:

  1. Civic sense e.g. littering, hygiene,
  2. Public Safety
  3. Gender Equality/Non-Discrimination
  4. Diversity eg. no discrimination based on language, or region, etc. [27]

2025 GDB overall rankings

First annual survey was conducted in 2025, in which overall ranking, form higher or better to lower was as follows: [27]

  1. Kerala
  2. Tamil Nadu
  3. West Bengal
  4. Maharashtra
  5. Odisha
  6. Himachal Pradesh
  7. Haryana
  8. Uttarakhand
  9. Chandigarh
  10. Delhi
  11. Telangana
  12. Bihar
  13. Jharkhand
  14. NATIONAL AVERAGE
  15. Rajasthan
  16. Chhattisgarh
  17. Assam
  18. Andhra Pradesh
  19. Karnataka
  20. Madhya Pradesh

2025 GDB rankings by individual parameters

Ranking is also done on each of 4 parameters, for example in 2025 Haryana ranked as follows: [27]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "IRS 2012 Q1 Topline Findings". Archived 7 April 2014 at the Wayback Machine . mruc.net. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  2. ↑ "Publications". India Today Group. Archived from the original on 5 August 2012. Retrieved 28 September 2010.
  3. ↑ Douglas Bullis (1997). Selling to India's Consumer Market. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 46. ISBN   978-1-56720-105-5. Archived from the original on 29 June 2023. Retrieved 7 May 2016.
  4. ↑ Advertising N Promotion. Tata McGraw-Hill Education. 2009. p. 713. ISBN   978-0-07-008031-7 . Retrieved 5 May 2016.
  5. ↑ "IRS 2017: India Today most-read magazine in the country, Business Today No.1 among business magazines". Business Today . 10 February 2018. Archived from the original on 20 July 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  6. ↑ "Indian billionaire Gautam Adani's fallen empire". 1 February 2023. Retrieved 12 September 2025.
  7. ↑ Vivek Pai (15 September 2014). "India Today Group launches Medium clone DailyO". Medianama. Archived from the original on 27 March 2019. Retrieved 27 March 2019. It looks like The India Today Group has launched a new opinion-oriented site called DailyO that provides commentary on news from various categories like politics, sports, life, sci-tech, money, humour and art & culture.
  8. ↑ The Far East and Australasia 2003. Psychology Press. 2002. p. 490. ISBN   978-1-85743-133-9. Archived from the original on 29 June 2023. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
  9. ↑ Bhandare, Namita. "70's: The decade of innocence" Archived 2012-08-17 at the Wayback Machine . Hindustan Times . Retrieved 29 July 2012.
  10. ↑ "India's Top 50 Influentials". Daily News and Analysis (DNA). 1 January 2009. Archived from the original on 8 July 2018. Retrieved 7 July 2018.
  11. ↑ Ray, Shantanu Ray (18 October 2017). "Aroon Purie hands over reins of India Today to daughter Kallie; appoints her as group vice-chairperson". First Post. Archived from the original on 25 June 2018. Retrieved 5 December 2017.
  12. ↑ "India Today now available in the UAE through Gulf News". 25 March 2024.
  13. ↑ Sidharth, Arjun (13 December 2017). "Paresh Mesta death: Rumour-mongering of brutality sparks tension, Karnataka Police issues stern warning". Alt News. Retrieved 15 September 2025.
  14. ↑ Sidharth, Arjun (14 February 2018). "Gold plated journalism: India Today and fake news". Alt News. Retrieved 15 September 2025.
  15. ↑ Jawed, Sam (24 December 2017). "Breaking (fake) news: Sections of Indian media acquit Lalu Prasad Yadav before convicting him". Alt News. Retrieved 15 September 2025.
  16. ↑ Jawed, Sam (16 May 2017). "Yet another news report based on "sources" denied by Indian Army". Alt News. Retrieved 15 September 2025.
  17. ↑ Staff, J. K. R. (31 January 2018). "Meet Abhijit Majumder, India Today editor, whose fake tweet 'killed' Rahul Upadhyay in Kasganj riots". Janta Ka Reporter. Retrieved 15 September 2025.
  18. ↑ Sidharth, Arjun (29 January 2018). "Mail Today editor Abhijit Majumder spreads fake news on Kasganj violence". Alt News. Retrieved 15 September 2025.
  19. ↑ Sidharth, Arjun (23 January 2018). "India Today uses 2-year old YouTube video to report Pakistani mortar fire". Alt News. Retrieved 15 September 2025.
  20. ↑ "India Today Takes Anchor Rajdeep Sardesai Off Air, Cuts Month's Salary for Retracted Tweet". The Wire. Retrieved 15 September 2025.
  21. ↑ Krishnan, Revathi (28 January 2021). "India Today takes Rajdeep Sardesai off air, docks month's salary for tweet on farmer's death". ThePrint. Retrieved 15 September 2025.
  22. ↑ Team, N. L. (28 January 2021). "India Today takes Rajdeep Sardesai off air for two weeks, docks one month's salary". Newslaundry. Retrieved 15 September 2025.
  23. ↑ Tech, India Today (12 September 2025). "Gen Z protestors have chosen next Nepal PM via vote on Discord, what is Discord and how it is used". India Today. Retrieved 15 September 2025.
  24. ↑ "Anti-Corruption Campaigner Named Nepal's Leader After Gen Z Protests". 12 September 2025. Retrieved 15 September 2025.
  25. ↑ "Nepal's Social Media Ban Backfires as Politics Moves to a Chat Room". 11 September 2025. Retrieved 15 September 2025.
  26. ↑ "At India Today, Anchors Can Spread Fake News While Editor is Sacked For Speaking Out". The Wire. Retrieved 15 September 2025.
  27. 1 2 3 Gross Domestic Behavior, India Today, accessed 6 Sept 2025.
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