The Indian media consists of several different types of communications of mass media: television, radio, cinema, newspapers, magazines, and Internet-based websites/portals. Indian media was active since the late 18th century. The print media started in India as early as 1780. Radio broadcasting began in 1927. Indian media is among the oldest in the world. It dates back even before the reign of Ashoka. Media in India has been free and independent throughout most of its history. However, there have been periods when it was muzzled. The period of emergency (1975–1977), declared by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was the brief period when India's media was faced with potential government retribution. Many of the media are controlled by large, for-profit corporations, which reap revenue from advertising, subscriptions, and sale of copyrighted material. India also has a strong music and film industry.
Hicky's Bengal Gazette or the Original Calcutta General Advertiser was an English language weekly newspaper published in Kolkata, the capital of British India. It was the first newspaper printed in Asia, and was published for two years, between 1780 and 1782, before the East India Company seized the newspaper's types and printing press. Founded by James Augustus Hicky, a highly eccentric Irishman who had previously spent two years in jail for debt, the newspaper was a strong critic of the administration of Governor General Warren Hastings. The newspaper was important for its provocative journalism and its fight for free expression in India.
The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William and later Bengal Province, was a subdivision of the British Empire in India. At the height of its territorial jurisdiction, it covered large parts of what is now South Asia and Southeast Asia. Bengal proper covered the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal. Calcutta, the city which grew around Fort William, was the capital of the Bengal Presidency. For many years, the Governor of Bengal was concurrently the Viceroy of India and Calcutta was the de facto capital of India until the early 20th-century.
Thomas Daniell was an English landscape painter who also painted Orientalist themes. He spent seven years in India, accompanied by his nephew William, also an artist, and published several series of aquatints of the country.
William Daniell (1769–1837) was an English landscape and marine painter, and printmaker, notable for his work in aquatint. He travelled extensively in India in the company of his uncle Thomas Daniell, with whom he collaborated on one of the finest illustrated works of the period – Oriental Scenery. He later travelled around the coastline of Britain to paint watercolours for the equally ambitious book A Voyage Round Great Britain. His work was exhibited at the Royal Academy and the British Institution and he became a Royal Academician in 1822.
The Morning Chronicle was a newspaper founded in 1769 in London, England, and published under various owners until 1862, when its publication was suspended, with two subsequent attempts at continued publication. From 28 June 1769 to March 1789 it was published under the name The Morning Chronicle, and London Advertiser. From 1789 to its final publication in 1865, it was published under the name The Morning Chronicle. It was notable for having been the first steady employer of essayist William Hazlitt as a political reporter, and the first steady employer of Charles Dickens as a journalist; for publishing the articles by Henry Mayhew that were collected and published in book format in 1851 as London Labour and the London Poor; and for publishing other major writers, such as John Stuart Mill.
Hindi media refers to media in Hindi language and its dialects, across the Hindi belt in India, and elsewhere with the Hindi-speaking Indian diaspora.
James Atkinson was a surgeon, artist and Persian scholar - "a Renaissance man among Anglo-Indians"
In British India, the Vernacular Press Act (1878) was enacted to curtail the freedom of the Indian press and prevent the expression of criticism toward British policies—notably, the opposition that had grown with the outset of the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–80). The Act was proposed by Lord Lytton, then Viceroy of India, and was unanimously passed by the Viceroy's Council on 14 March 1878. The act excluded English-language publications as it was meant to control seditious writing in 'publications in Oriental languages' everywhere in the country, except for the South. Thus the British totally discriminated against the Indian Press.
In the last quarter of the 18th century, Calcutta grew into the first major centre of commercial and government printing. For the first time in the context of South Asia it becomes possible to talk of a nascent book trade which was full-fledged and included the operations of printers, binders, subscription publishing and libraries.
James Augustus Hicky was an Irishman who launched the first printed newspaper in India, Hicky's Bengal Gazette.
William Baillie was a British artist working in India in the late 18th century.
John Zachariah Kiernander (1711–1799), also known as Johann Zacharias Kiernander, was a Swedish Lutheran missionary in India.
The Bengal Hurkaru and Chronicle was an English-language newspaper published in Calcutta, British India from 1795 to 1866.
Varuna was launched at Calcutta in 1796. She made four voyages as an "extra ship" for the British East India Company (EIC), and then spent two years as a troopship. She returned to India in 1806. She was lost in 1811, probably in a typhoon.
Calcutta Gazette was an English newspaper in Bengal founded by a colonial officer Francis Gladwin in 1784. It was one of the first newspapers in India.
The India Gazette; or, Calcutta Public Advertiser was an English language weekly newspaper published in Kolkata, the capital of British India. It was the second newspaper printed in India. Founded by Bernard Messink and Peter Reed, two East India Company employees, the paper was a strong supporter of the administration of the Governor General Warren Hastings, and a rival to India's first newspaper Hicky's Bengal Gazette. It was founded on 18 November 1780
