Hindusthan Samachar

March 1, 2023

The Hindustan Samachar was awarded a new contract to provide news content in 12 languages to Doordarshan and AIR for a period of 25-and-a-half months. The deal is reportedly worth Rs 7.70 crore and includes the supply of 12 national news stories and 40 “local stories” in regional languages every day.

Contract of Hindustan Samachar

The Prasar Bharati represented the Government of India in signing the contract. There exists a contract between Prasar Bharati and Hindustan Samachar. Under this old contract, Prasar Bharti receives news feeds from Hindustan Samachar. The Prasar Bharati receives 100 news feeds from HS on daily basis. Also, the HS provides 40 local news under the contract. Now the contract is being extended to other languages.

Why Hindustan Samachar?

As compared to the PTI And UNI agencies, the contract price of Hindustan Samachar is less expensive. The PTI was contracted at Rs 9 crores to provide a news feed to the HS and the UNI was contracted at Rs 5 crores. The contract price of HS was Rs 2 crores. And therefore, the contract of HS is being extended. (These are the prices of the old contracts)

What is the link between RSS and Hindustan Samachar?

Hindusthan Samachar (HS) is a news agency that was founded by Shivram Shankar Apte, a journalist with ties to the RSS. He founded the news agency as a multi-lingual news organization. In 1975, during the Emergency, the Indian government merged HS with three other news agencies- PTI, United News of India (UNI) and Samachar Bharati- into a single entity, Samachar. The Janata Party government later reversed this decision, but HS was again targeted by the government in 1983.

Struggles in the path of Hindustan Samachar

In 1986, the HS was shut down due to a financial crisis. In 2002, the RSS renewed the HS with the help of PM Shri Vajpayee. HS presents news from a nationalist perspective. When RSS was under the leadership of Bal Thackeray, the founder, the party was inclined towards the Marathis in the state. However, under the leadership of Uddhav Thackeray, the party has nationalistic views. The shift of the party from Maratha-centric principles to more nationalistic principles was the main reason behind recent tensions in the state (the Shinde-Thackeray clash).

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