Thirty-six years is but a blip in a newspaper’s history, when there are many publications which are over 100 years old.
The Times of India was technically launched in 1838, making it just 18 years short of 200. The Hindu is 142.
But an anniversary is an anniversary, and the well-regarded Hindi daily Prabhat Khabar published from Bihar and Jharkhand is celebrating its 36th today.
This was how its black-and-white front page looked on the day of its launch in 1984. Nearly no photographs, no advertisements, no ear panels, and just a cartoon as the main art work.
And this is how its front page looks today, all colour, a modular layout, a classy masthead, good looking fonts, solus ads—a reflection in many ways of how easier access to printing technology and capital changed the face of Indian journalism after the reforms process began in 1991.
The paper’s former editor Harivansh is currently a Rajya Sabha member representing the JDU.
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Below are three pages from Prabhat Khabar‘s 36th anniversary issue chronicling its role in the eastern part of India, with a blurb from the region’s most famous contemporary face: Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
IJR 