Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Urdu Journalism

The Persian newspapers of west Bengal were forerunners of the Urdu press. At that time two famous periodicals were Mirat-ul-Akhbar by Raja Rammohan Roy and Jam-i-Jahan-Numa by Lal Sadasukh Lal in 1822. When Persian gained official language status, Urdu got importance. There was a major growth in Urdu journalism from the 1850s.
With the passage of time many writers did a lot of work in journalism. On 14th of January 1850, Munshi Harsukh Rai started highly remarkable weekly Kohinoor. In 1858, Manbir Kabiruddin started Urdu guide, the first Urdu daily from Calcutta. First Urdu newspapers of Delhi were Kiran-us-Sadai and Fawaid-ul-Nazarin by Rama Chandra. The Urdu press in Delhi became highly critical of the British government.    
The first Urdu newspapers of Delhi were Fawaid-ul-Nazarin and Kiran-us-Sadai, founded by Rama Chandra in 1852. The Urdu press in Delhi became highly critical of the British government. The best example of them is the Urdu Akhbar, edited by Syed Hasan, which highlighted many civic issues like drainage, sanitation, adulteration of food, and corruption.
Urdu journalism took on a strongly nationalistic note towards the turn of the 20th century. Urdu journalism suffered a lot, before and after partition. Riots in Lahore leads to mobs raiding the office of Milap and burning machines and newsprints, Ranbir, its managing director was stabbed and the paper was closed for six weeks, and then shifted to Delhi.
In Pakistan the Daily Jang is one of the most widely circulated newspapers in the country. Other popular news papers are Daily Imroze, Daily Mashriq, Khabrain, Millat and Nawa-i-Waqt.

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