Prime Minister Modi will also release a book and video about the 200-year trip to Mumbai Samachar.
Mumbai: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the 200th anniversary celebrations of the Gujarati daily “Mumbai Samachar” on June 14. Nilesh Dave told PTI.
Prime Minister Modi will communicate with readers and staff of Mumbai Samachar, Mr Dave said. Gujarat Prime Minister Bhupendra Patel will attend the event, he said, adding that Maharashtra Prime Minister Uddhav Thackeray had also been invited.
The event will be held at the Jio World Centre in Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex. There will also be an exhibition where visitors will be able to see a newspaper printing machine from the 18th century.
PM Modi will also release a book and video film on the 200-year journey of Mumbai Samachar, Mr Dave said.
Mumbai Samachar has seen through two pandemics, two world wars, and the growth of a city thriving in myriad avatars, from a textile and mercantile hub to a buzzing financial and film industry capital.
Mumbai Samachar’s director Hormusji Cama says that 20 years ago the newspaper conducted research and found that it is the oldest surviving publication in India and the fourth oldest in the world. Bombay Samachar (as it was once said) began as a weekly newspaper in 1822 to inform readers for the first time about the movement of ships and goods, and gradually evolved into a real city newspaper focused on the business it is today.
Fardunjee Marzban, a Persian scholar, began publishing four years after the launch of the Bengali newspaper Samachar Darpan to become the second non-English newspaper to be published in India. At that time it was called Moombina Samachar and for the first 10 years it was a weekly, then a biweekly and from 1855 daily.
He exchanged papers with several hands before the Cam family took over in 1933.
Cama Norton et al. is a supplier of newsprint and ink for Mumbai Samachar, owned by the Belgaumwal family. The Camas had approached the court against non-payment of arrears by Belgaumwalas and sought liquidation proceedings. The court instead asked Camas to take over the newspaper and salvage it, citing the livelihoods of employees that would be lost if the paper were to shut down. The Camas agreed.
Since then, the publication has steadily grown and today it boasts of the most advanced technologies available in the field of publishing.