Kasturi & Sons Ltd (KSL) has launched the Mumbai edition of its flagship publication The Hindu on Friday.
“We enter Mumbai with lot of hope and optimism,” Malini Parthasarathy, Editor of The Hindu , said at a press conference on Friday.
“We realise our core brand strength is the credibility and integrity of our reporting. This brings authenticity to our perspective. At the same time, we acknowledge Mumbai’s great transformation into an upwardly rising global city. Our edition has eight pages uniquely catering to Mumbai. We hope to capture both the buoyant and the poignant stories emanating from here.”
KSL Chairman, N Ram, said: “It is certainly a very ambitious project. We have goodwill in Mumbai. We are not just aiming at a particular segment. A complete newspaper has to target everybody. We have no particular number in mind. We don’t want to overstate or understate our ambition. I think there is space in Mumbai for all of us. We hope you will welcome us, including those organisations that are competing in this market, because there is place for our kind of journalism.”
He said The Hindu has one clear principle. “We maintain our line between our editorial and business operations of our company. The reputation of The Hindu , 137 years old now, is built on honouring this line from the start, practicing independent journalism that wants to be free, that recognises sense of social responsibility that is credible, trustworthy and relevant.”
Ram also said the company, which went through a couple of challenging years, has seen a turnaround. “We are clearly on the path of growth in every sense.”
N Ravi, Director, KSL, said: “The editorial offering we hope would be excellent and mark a change from what people in Mumbai are used to reading. We are quite optimistic that readers will receive it well.”
Rajiv Lochan, MD and CEO, KSL, said the Mumbai edition launch is a historic moment. A healthy proportion of young readers have subscribed, he added. Hope is that the edition would break even in three to four years, Lochan said.
The Hindu ’s net paid daily circulation is approaching 1.5 million copies.
Along with The Hindu , Kasturi & Sons Ltd publishes the business daily BusinessLine , the fortnightly Frontline , the sports weekly Sportstar and The Hindu (Tamil) daily.