A great newspaper market

In the second most-populous nation state on the planet, the world of newspapers, magazines, pamphlets and the like – in short, the print media – epitomises the size and diversity of the country's billion-plus population. India's press reflects not just the plurality and heterogeneity of the country, but also the deep divisions that exist in its highly hierarchical society. On the one hand, without its many active presses India could hardly be described as a democracy at all. On the other hand, the country's print media portray some of the most crass, crude and commercial aspects of capitalist consumerism.

There are currently close to 60,000 publications of various kinds registered with the Registrar of Newspapers of India (RNI), which functions under the government's Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. Currently, 1900-odd daily newspapers are published in the country – 42 percent in Hindi, 8 percent in English and the rest, a full half, in dozens of other languages and dialects. The total annual advertising revenue earned by all newspapers in India totals around USD one billion. Until the early 1990s, the RNI's main tasks were to register names of publications, and to allocate then-scarce imported paper at subsidised rates. With imports of newsprint being subsequently deregulated, the RNI's role has diminished considerably over the past decade.