News Papers In India

The Musalman News Paper

It is the most ancient Urdu-language daily newspaper, which is published from the city of Chennai in the country, India. This newspaper is an evening paper consisting of four pages. All these pages are handwritten by help of calligraphers, prior to being mass-produced along with a printing press. As per The Times of India and the Wired, The Musalman is the only of its kind to be handwritten newspaper in the whole world.

Syed Azmathullah is known to have laid the foundation of this newspaper in the year of 1927. The president of the Madras session of the Indian National Congress, Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari, inaugurated this paper. The office of this newspaper situated at the Triplicane High Road in Chennai.

Soon after the death of Syed Azmathullah, this daily was edited by a noted personality, Syed Fazullah, who left for heavenly abode on 26 April 2008, when he was 78 years old. In the year of 2007, Fazullah had stated his dismay that the art of calligraphy is likely to perish along with him, because his siblings were hardly interested in adopting the art of tradition of calligraphy. Syed Nasarulla, son of Fazullah, had expressed that he has shallow interest in the art of calligraphy, and there will be no alterations when he takes control of the charge.

As per the date 30 April 2008, the new editor is not declared yet but the daily is published each day, with hand-written script.

Katibs, who are perfect calligraphers, work in a tiny corner of dimension of an 800 feet one-room office. They haven’t got many facilities. What they have is just a tube light, three bulbs and two wall fans. As per the year of 2008, the team of calligraphy consists of two women and one man, who toil for three hours on every page of t he hand-written newspaper. The product of hand-written is finely processed onto a photo negative and subsequently mass-produced with the help of a printing press.

As per the year of 2007, a noted personality, Rahman Husseini is the principal katib or simply copywriter in the language of English, of the paper. He took the charge of the newspaper as an accountant, and also held the post of the Katib, when the then principal katib left for heavenly abode in the year of 1980. In the year of 2007, Rahman Husseni made his earning of Rs. 2,500 per month, while the other Khurshid and katibs Shabana made earning of Rs. 60 per page per day.

Chinnaswamy Balasubramaniam is the chief reporter, who has been working with this newspaper for the last 20 years. This daily boasts off the correspondents, who are spread all over the country, India, which includes Hyderabad, Kolkata and New Delhi.
The office of this newspaper often hosts religious leaders, renowned poets and royalty. Some of these make contribution to the pages.

The newspaper has four pages. The front page is for international and national news, the second and the third pages are meant for local news, and at last the fourth page is for thrilling sports. Some of the space is left blank at the lower right corner of the front page, in case if there is some breaking news.

As per April 2008, this paper is sold for 75 paisa per copy, and has nearly 22,000 subscribers.