Deepika (newspaper)

For other uses, see Deepika.

Deepika, a Malayalam newspaper, is one of the oldest newspapers published in India. It is also the first Malayalam daily. Deepika publishes editions from Kottayam, Kochi, Kannur, Thrissur, Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode. It has a circulation base of over 180,000 copies.

History

Deepika has a history of over a century. It was first published by a Syrian Christian priest, Nidhirikkal Manikkathanar, or Father Emmanuel Nidhiri, under the masthead Nazrani Deepika, in 1887. The first issue came out on 1887 April 15, the Vishu (the spring equinox festival according to Kerala tradition). The word "Deepika" in Malayalam means "oil candle." It was then printed on a crude handmade wooden press.

As its first name denotes, Deepika is more popular among Nasranis or Syrian Malabar Nasrani or Catholics of the syrian tradition in Kerala in Kerala. For many years Deepika was run by Carmelites of Mary Immaculate (CMI), a religious order within the Roman Catholic Church. In the 1989 the daily was taken over by a Public Limited Company, Rashtra Deepika Ltd., which lay people and priests as directors of the company. By 2005, the majority shares of Deepika was taken over by a mosleem businessman named M A Pharis. He along with his mentor, the bishop of Kanjirappilly, the Rev. Mathew Arackal, implemented a VRS(voluntary retirement scheme) in Deepika and got more than 200 regular staff including 90 percent of the journalists out. Now the paper and sister publications are more like the mouthpieces of CPI(M) State Secretary Pinaraayi Vijayan and his business friends. The Catholic church has nothing to do weith Deepika presently.

Despite of its religious background Deepika introduced many changes in Malayalam journalism. It was the first to introduce many innovations.

• Deepika was the first newspaper in Malayalam to be published on a daily basis.
• It was the first among Malayalam newspapers to go online.
• Deepika was the first Malayalam newspaper to start a full page for sports news.

Other publications

• Rashtra Deepika Evening Daily
• Kuttikalude Deepika
• Children’s Digest
• Business Deepika
• Rashtra Deepika Cinema
• Karshakan
• Sthreedhanam
• Deepika.com

External links

• Online Deepika
• Padma - Mozilla extension for auto transforming Deepika font(ML-TTKarthika) to Unicode