The Times of India

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This article is about the flagship newspaper of the larger conglomerate. For the
latter's flagship internet operations, see IndiaTimes.

The Times of India

Let the Truth Prevail

20 August 2013 front page of the Kolkata edition of The Times of India

Type Daily newspaper

Format Broadsheet

Owner(s) The Times Group

Publisher Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd.

Editor-in-chief Jaideep Bose

 Founded 3 November 1838; 183 years ago

Language English

Headquarters Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Country India

Circulation 2,880,144 daily[1] (as of December 2019)

Sister newspapers The Economic Times

Navbharat Times

Maharashtra Times

Ei Samay

Mumbai Mirror

Vijaya Karnataka

Bangalore Mirror

ISSN 0971-8257

OCLC number 23379369

Website timesofindia.com

 Media of India
 List of newspapers

The Times of India (also known by its abbreviation 'TOI') is an Indian English-
language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The
Times Group. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest
selling English-language daily in the world.[2][3][4][5][1][6] It is the oldest English-language
newspaper in India, and the second-oldest Indian newspaper still in circulation, with
its first edition published in 1838.[7] It is nicknamed as "The Old Lady of Bori Bunder",
[8][9]
and is an Indian "newspaper of record".[10][11]
Near the beginning of the 20th century, Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India, called The
Times of India "the leading paper in Asia".[12][13] In 1991, the BBC ranked The Times of
India among the world's six best newspapers.[14][15]
It is owned and published by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. (B.C.C.L.), which is
owned by the Sahu Jain family. In the Brand Trust Report India study 2019, The
Times of India was rated as the most trusted English newspaper.
[16]
Reuters rated The Times of India as India's most trusted media news brand in a
survey.[17][18]
 Contents

History[edit]

Times of India Buildings, ca. 1898

Beginnings[edit]
Diamond Jubilee, November 1898.

The Times of India issued its first edition on 3 November 1838 as The Bombay
Times and Journal of Commerce.[19][20] The paper was published on Wednesdays
and Saturdays under the direction of Raobahadur Narayan Dinanath Velkar, a
Maharashtrian social reformer, and contained news from Britain and the world, as
well as the Indian Subcontinent. J. E. Brennan was its first editor.[21][22] In 1850, it
began to publish daily editions.
In 1860, editor Robert Knight (1825–1892) bought the Indian shareholders' interests,
merged with rival Bombay Standard, and started India's first news agency. It
wired Times dispatches to papers across the country and became the Indian agent
for Reuters news service. In 1861, he changed the name from the Bombay Times
and Standard to The Times of India. Knight fought for a press free of prior restraint or
intimidation, frequently resisting the attempts by governments, business interests,
and cultural spokesmen; and led the paper to national prominence.[23][24] In the 19th
century, this newspaper company employed more than 800 people and had a
sizeable circulation in India and Europe.
Bennett and Coleman ownership[edit]
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Subsequently, The Times of India saw its ownership change several times until 1892
when an English journalist named Thomas Jewell Bennett, along with Frank Morris
Coleman (who later drowned in the 1915 sinking of the SS Persia), acquired the
newspaper through their new joint stock company, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd.
Dalmia ownership[edit]
Sir Stanley Reed edited The Times of India from 1907 until 1924 and received
correspondence from major figures of India such as Mahatma Gandhi. In all he lived
in India for fifty years. He was respected in the United Kingdom as an expert on
Indian current affairs.
Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd was sold to sugar magnate Ramkrishna Dalmia of the
industrial family, for ₹20 million (equivalent to ₹2.4 billion or US$32 million in 2020)
in 1946, as India became independent and the British owners left.[25] In 1955
the Vivian Bose Commission of Inquiry found that Ramkrishna Dalmia, in 1947, had
engineered the acquisition of the media giant Bennett Coleman & Co. by transferring
money from a bank and an insurance company of which he was the Chairman. In the
court case that followed, Ramkrishna Dalmia was sentenced to two years in Tihar
Jail after having been convicted of embezzlement and fraud.[5]
Most of the jail term he managed to spend in hospital. Upon his release, his son-in-
law, Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain, to whom he had entrusted the running of Bennett,
Coleman & Co. Ltd., rebuffed his efforts to resume command of the company. [5]
Jain family (Shanti Prasad Jain)[edit]
In the early 1960s, Shanti Prasad Jain was imprisoned on charges of selling
newsprint on the black market.[26] And based on the Vivian Bose Commission's earlier
report which found wrongdoings of the Dalmia – Jain group, that included specific
charges against Shanti Prasad Jain, the Government of India filed a petition to
restrain and remove the management of Bennett, Coleman and Company. Based on
the pleading, the Justice directed the Government to assume control of the
newspaper which resulted in replacing half of the directors and appointing a Bombay
High Court judge as the Chairman.[27]
Under the Government of India[edit]

The Times of India on a 1988 stamp

The Times of India on a 2013 stamp

Following the Vivian Bose Commission report indicating serious wrongdoings of the
Dalmia–Jain group, on 28 August 1969, the Bombay High Court, under Justice J. L.
Nain, passed an interim order to disband the existing board of Bennett, Coleman &
Co and to constitute a new board under the Government. The bench ruled that
"Under these circumstances, the best thing would be to pass such orders on the
assumption that the allegations made by the petitioners that the affairs of the
company were being conducted in a manner prejudicial to public interest and to the
interests of the Company are correct".[28] Following that order, Shanti Prasad Jain
ceased to be a director and the company ran with new directors on board, appointed
by the Government of India, with the exception of a lone stenographer of the Jains.
Curiously, the court appointed D K Kunte as Chairman of the Board. Kunte had no
prior business experience and was also an opposition member of the Lok Sabha.
Back to the Jain family[edit]
In 1976, during the Emergency in India, the Government transferred ownership of
the newspaper back to Ashok Kumar Jain, who was Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain's son
and Ramkrishna Dalmia's grandson. He is the father of the current owners Samir
Jain and Vineet Jain).[29] The Jains too often landed themselves in various money
laundering scams and Ashok Kumar Jain had to flee the country when
the Enforcement Directorate pursued his case strongly in 1998 for alleged violations
of illegal transfer of funds (to the tune of US$1.25 million) to an overseas account
in Switzerland.[30][31][32][33]
During the Emergency[edit]
On 26 June 1975, the day after India declared a state of emergency,
the Bombay edition of The Times of India carried an entry in its obituary column that
read "D.E.M. O'Cracy, beloved husband of T.Ruth, father of L.I.Bertie, brother of
Faith, Hope and Justice expired on 25 June".[34] The move was a critique of Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi's 21-month state of emergency, which is now widely known as
"the Emergency" and seen by many as a roundly authoritarian era of Indian
government.[35][36]
The Times in the 21st century[edit]
In late 2006, Times Group acquired Vijayanand Printers Limited (VPL). VPL
previously published two Kannada newspapers, Vijay Karnataka and Usha Kiran,
and an English daily, Vijay Times. Vijay Karnataka was the leader in the Kannada
newspaper segment then.[37]
The paper launched a Chennai edition, 12 April 2008.[38] It launched a Kolhapur
edition, February 2013.
TOIFA Awards[edit]
Introduced in 2013[39] and awarded for the second time in 2016,[40] "The Times of India
Film Awards" or the "TOIFA" is an award for the work in Film Industry decided by a
global public vote on the nomination categories.[41]

Editions and publications [edit]

TOI's first office is opposite the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai where it was founded.[20]

The Times of India is published by the media group Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd.
The company, along with its other group of companies, known as The Times Group,
also publishes Ahmedabad Mirror, Bangalore Mirror, Mumbai Mirror, Pune
Mirror; Economic Times; ET Panache (Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore on Monday to
Friday) and Times of India ET Panache (Pune and Chennai on every Saturday); Ei
Samay, (a Bengali daily); Maharashtra Times, (a Marathi daily); Navbharat Times,
(a Hindi daily).
The Times of India has its editions in major cities such as Mumbai,
[42]
Agra, Ahmedabad, Allahabad, Aurangabad, Bareilly, Bangalore, Belgaum, Bhopal,
Bhubaneswar, Coimbatore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Dehradun, Delhi, Gorakhpur, Gur
gaon, Guwahati, Gwalior, Hubli, Hyderabad, Indore, Jabalpur, Jaipur, Jammu, Kanpu
r, Kochi, Kolhapur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Madurai, Malabar, Mangalore, Meer
ut, Mysore, Nagpur, Nashik, Navi
Mumbai, Noida, Panaji, Patna, Pondicherry, Pune, Raipur, Rajkot, Ranchi, Shimla, S
urat, Thane, Tiruchirapally, Trivandrum, Vadodara, Varanasi, Vijayawada and Visakh
apatnam.[citation needed]

Times Group Network[edit]

 Speaking Tree: A spiritual network intended to allow spiritual seekers to link
spiritual seekers with established practitioners.[43]
 Healthmeup: A health, diet, and fitness website.[44]
 Cricbuzz: In November 2014, Times Internet acquired Cricbuzz, a website
focused on cricket news.[45]