Hindi Journalism day: story of glory in the history of journalism
Hindi Journalism Day is celebrated on 30th May. In 1826,on this day Pandit jugal Kishore Shukla started publishing the first Hindi newspaper 'Udant Martand' from Kolkata (Then Calcutta). The meaning of Udant Martand is Udant=News, Martand=sun. Hindi journalism has come a long way since then.
At that time, pandit Jugal Kishore was not even aware that this new sun will rise and one day will light up the whole of India.
Udant Martand was the first newspaper in Hindi. Its publication began as a weekly newspaper from Kolkata in May 1826. Pandit Jugal Kishore started this Hindi weekly newspaper from Amdatalla Gali 34, a locality called Kolu Tola of Kolkata. During that time many newspapers were published in English, Persian and Bangla, but not a single newspaper was published in Hindi. Hence, the publication of 'Udant Martand' was started. udant martand used a mix of hindi dialects, khari boli and braj bhasha. This newspaper used to come out every Tuesday. The first issue of this weekly newspaper printed 500 copies. Due to not being in a Hindi-speaking state, it could not get many readers. also, due to being away from Hindi-speaking states, they had to send newspapers by post. Due to the high postal rates, sending it to Hindi-speaking states also became a costly deal for both readers & publication which resulted in less readership of Udant Martand. Pandit Jugal Kishore requested the government to give some concession in postal rates so that newspapers could be sent to readers in Hindi-speaking regions, but the British government did not agree to it.due to high postal rates and less readership, later on 4 December 1826,this publication had to be closed due to financial problems, But later the circumstances changed and Hindi newspapers, which time to time made their place in the society and became important in changing and improving the direction and condition of society and politics. This journey of Hindi journalism started with 'Udant Martand' continues today and Hindi journalism is moving towards prosperity day by day. At the time of the beginning of 'Udant Martand' no one had imagined that Hindi journalism would later come and become so big & important.
Currently, there are approx 82,000 newspapers being printed in India, out of which 33,000 is Hindi. According to MRUC India readership survey 2019 Q4 Dainik Jagran (Hindi Newspaper) continues to be the largest read daily across the languages & Dainik Bhaskar (Hindi Newspaper) at second position.