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INDIAN NEWS AGENCIES AT A GLANCE

1. Press Trust of India (PTI) by IENS on August 27, 1947.2. United News of India (UNI) by 8 major dailies on December 19, 1959.3. Other news agencies.

PRESS TRUST OF INDIA (PTI)

Meanwhile, the Indian and Eastern Newspapers Society (IENS) launched on August 27,

1947 its own agency, the Press Trust of India (PTI), but it began functioning from

February 1, 1949. This news agency could only be formed due to the efforts of such

stalwarts as Ramnath Goenka (Indian Express), Devda Gandhi (Hindustan Times),

Kasturi Srinivasan (Hindu), C R Srinivasan (Swadesamitran), and S Sadanand (FPI) and

with the blessing of Sardar Ballabhbhai Patel, who as a member for Homa and

Information & Broadcasting in the Viceroys Executive Council in 1946 had told Reuters

in plain terms, hand over to PTI and leave India.

PTI began as a non- profit making enterprise. It arrived at a 3-year agreement with

Reuters by which it took over the API and joined Reuters as an equal partner in the

gathering and dissemination of world news. The agreement was that the PTI purchased

Reuters news at Mumbai and distributed them to its subscribers in India. It also has

arrangements with the AP and AFP for distribution of their news in India. APs photo and

international commercial information are also distributed through PTI in India.

It runs its news services in English and Hindi (Bhasha). Most newspapers, radio/TV

channels in India and several others abroad, including BBC in London, are its

subscribers. Its subscribers include 500 newspapers in India and scores abroad. It is alsoavailable on the Internet. With a staff of about 1,500, including 400 journalists, it has

about 100 bureaus across the country and foreign correspondents in major cities of the

world.

Besides, its television wingPTI-TVdoes feature and undertake corporate documentaries

on assignment basis. It is a leading participant in the Pool of News Agencies of the Non-

Aligned Countries, Asia Pulse International and the Organisation of Asia-Pacific

News Agencies.

UNITED NEWS OF INDIA (UNI)

Another major effort for starting a national news agency was taken ten years after thelaunch of the PTI. Known as the United News of India (UNI), it was launched on

December 19, 1959 established by Dr. B.C. Roy and sponsored by eight of the

mainstream dailies- The Times of India, Hindustan Times, Hindu, Statesman, Hindustan

Standard, Amrita Bazar Patrika, Deccan Herald, and Aryavarta (Hindi). It started

functioning from March 21, 1961. Launched to infuse a sense of competition in news

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collection and dissemination, it has emerged as a competitor to the PTI. It got organized

under the stewardship of men like Kuldip Nayar and G.G. Mirchandani.

In the early 1980s it began its full-fledged wire service Univarta and in June 1992 the

first ever wire service in Urdu. Begun in 1961 with only 13 subscribers, it has today 825

subscribers in total. It has 70 offices in India and strength of more than 1000 persons,

including 323 journalists. It is now the first Indian news agency to deliver its entire news

services in English, Hindi and Urdu, as well as its photo service through the Internet.

In a major step forward it has recently switched over to satellite technology for

transmission of news. Its VSAT network, linking 44 units, provides it the capability to

send news and photos.

UNI takes world news from Reuters and German news agency Deutche Press Agency

(DPA). It also has arrangements of exchange of news with UNB (Bangladesh), Xinhua

(China), KUNA (Kuwait), GNA (Bahrain), QNA (Qatar), ONA (Oman), WAM (UAE),

Anadolu (Turkey) and Ria Novosti (Russia).

OTHER AGENCIES

Besides, several small news as well as feature agencies have been in recent years with the

aim of filling in the many gaps in internal news coverage.

Hindustan Samachar, set up in 1948 by S.S. Apte as a private limited company, was one

of them. This agency worked to distribute news among newspapers through the Devnagri

script. In the beginning telegrams were being distributed in Hindi, but when Devnagri

teleprinters came, they were used. However, in 1957 the cost of transmission forced Apte

to hand over the Hindustan Samachar to a cooperative of agencys workers in Delhi.

When this agency merged with Samachar along with other news agencies followingEmergency in 1975, it had by then 14 teleprinter circuits and supplied news to over 135

subscribers in Hindi, Hindi and eight regional languages.

Similarly, another news agency Samachar Bharati with a view to establish a multi-

lingual news agency was started on January 1, 1967. It had the blessing of people like Jai

Prakash Narain. It met the same fate like that ofHindustan Samachar, and was merged in

Samachar.

Apart from wire agencies, there have been a large number of agencies that delivered

news and features by hand or mail like the India Press Agency (IPA), Indian News and

Feature Alliance (INFA), Press Asia International(PAI)and Feature and News Alliance

(FANA).

The history of news agencies in India would remain incomplete if there is no talk of its

traumatic experience during the period of Emergency (1975-77). Then censorship of

news applied to the agencies too. But soon the four news agencies- PTI, UNI, Hindustan

Samachar, and Samachar Bharati- were merged to form a single agency following the

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notice from radio network that the services of the agencies would be discontinued from

February 1, 1976.

Thanks to the end of the Emergency and formation of the Janta Party government on

March 24, 1977, censorship was totally lifted and the trauma of the agencies was over. A

committee headed by senior columnist Kuldip Nayar was set up to suggest how to undo

the damage and make the news agencies function in a healthy and independent

atmosphere. The committee recommended in August 1977 the formation of two separate

agencies, Varta and Sandesh, ultimately leading to an international news agency, News

India. However, the government instead decided to restore the status quo of the four news

agencies.