Urdu newspapers in India & Etemaad's website اعتماد اردو اخبار، حیدرآباد

The website of Etemaad is really nice. Though difficult to find the site because of the spelling of etemaad. www.etemaaddaily.com . It is among the best Urdu sites I have seen. Like Hindustan Times and ToI websites it also brings you the full page on the screen.

Truly Hyderabad has remained the fortress of Urdu in India. While papers in Uttar Pradesh have seen a great decline lately, Lucknow has seen a growth in circulation, particularly since Rashtriya Sahara Urdu was launched.

The Lucknow edition of Sahafat is doing well. Also, Indian Express' local Urdu daily "Qaumi Khabrein' (if I remember correctly) is beautifully printed and is an eight-page standard newspaper. Apart from this 2-3 other papers like Eqdaam, Waris-e-Urdu etc are being published but none of these papers are available on net.

The Mumbai papers Urdu Times, Hindustan and Inquilab are doing reasonably well. The site of Urdu Times Mumbai is difficult to find though because it is on dot Net. Mumbai is thus another citadel of Urdu journalism. Situation in Karnataka where Salaar exists and West Bengal where Kolkata has Akkas, Azad Hind etc is not very rosy though.

In Madhya Pradesh Urdu Action's Bhopal and Burhanpur editions are the saving grace. The legendary Urdu daily Nadeem that is now in its 70th year is a dying institution sadly. Though Muslims easily switched to Hindi newspapers in Rajasthan, parts of UP, MP and Bihar, the 99% Hindu-Sikh Punjab still has the wonderful Hind Samachar which is widely circulated.

Though its circulation figures have dropped to less than 50,000 in recent years. However, it faces no immediate threat because the sister publications in Hindi and Punjabi are earning profits.

The group is named after it and the owners have an emotional bond with this paper.
Hind Samachar remains the only newspaper in Urdu that is published on glossy paper. In Bihar and Jharkhand a few newspapers are carrying the tradition with Qaumi Tanzeem the only mass circulated daily.

Hope remains from Jammu and Kashmir the sole state with Urdu as state language in India. Many newspapers are published and circulated fairly well. Delhi has Qaumi Awaz, Rashtriya Sahara and a few other newspapers. The oldies like Milap, Pratap that are still read by the elderly Hindu-Sikh.