Deepika (newspaper)

Deepika, a Malayalam newspaper, is one of the oldest newspapers published from India. It is also the first Malayalam daily. Deepika has now its editions in 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 Roman Catholic priest, Nidhirikkal Manikkathanar, under the masthead Nazrani Deepika, in 1888. 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 Catholics in Kerala. For many years Deepika was run by Carmelites of Mary Immaculate(CMI), a religious order within the Roman Catholic Church. In the mid 90s the daily was taken over by a Public Limited Company, Rashtra Deepika, which consists mostly bishops and priests as board of directors.
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 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