New Delhi, Dec 29 (IANS): The registered publications in India recorded growth of 5.8 percent over previous year with Hindi publications claiming a combined circulation of over 25 crore followed by English at over six crore, according to the latest annual report of RNI, released here on Tuesday.
Bengali newspaper Ananda Bazar Patrika is ranked the largest circulated daily in the country.
Releasing the Registrar of Newspapers for India (RNI) report, Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley said that media has vastly expanded and there are different angles to the same news.
"The dividing line between news and opinion is becoming very weak. It is time for the print media to strike back," Jaitley said.
The minister said that newspapers mainly accounted for overall growth of 5.80 percent recorded by registered publications and contribution by periodicals was less.
According to Press in India 2014-15, the 59th annual report of Registrar of Newspapers for India (RNI), there were 1,05,443 registered publications in total. The number of new publications registered in 2014-15 was 5,817.
It said three largest circulated dailies were Anand Bazar Patrika, Bengali, (Kolkata edition) 11,78,779 copies, Hindustan Times, English (Delhi edition) 10,18,367, and The Times of India (Delhi edition) 9,72,180.
The Times of India, English (33 editions) was the largest circulated multi-edition daily with 46,30,220 copies per publishing day followed by Dainik Bhaskar, Hindi (34 editions) at 36,94,385.
Press Registrar and head of RNI S.M. Khan said the annual report is based on the information furnished by the publishers in their online annual statements as required under the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867.
For the annual report of 2014-15, 23,394 publications filled their annual statements online.
The top three states having the largest number of publications were Uttar Pradesh (16,130), Maharashtra (14,394) and Delhi (12,177).
In terms of language, Hindi had the largest number of publications at 42,493 followed by English at 13,661 and Marathi at 7,818.
Total circulation of dailies, bi- and tri-weeklies and periodicals stood at 51,05,21,445 per publishing day.
While Hindi publications claimed a circulation of 25,77,61,985, English publications claimed a circulation of 6,26,62,670.
These were followed by Urdu (4,12,73,949), Telugu (2,72,01,064), Marathi (2,39,25,462) and Gujarati (2,37,42,849).
