The Economist shares our astonishment at the 12.9% increase in the circulation of Indian newspapers:

…newspapers are struggling in Europe and America, but in India, as in China, they are booming.

I love this quote by M.J. Akbar (editor of Asian Age)

The language of aspiration is English and the medium of aspiration is the newspaper, so an English newspaper is almost a ladder on which this class seeks to rise.

(I can picture my little cousin, checking out a story on the Ambanis and plotting world domination)

While newspapers in industrialized countries continue to lament the loss of their audience to up-to-the-minute online competitors, India boasts 300 large newspapers…and seems to be adding new ones every week.

The future looks bright. At best, a mere 300m of the country’s billion-odd people are middle class; only 60% are literate. As the untutored crowds learn to read, they are likely to reach for a newspaper.

Besides, Indian papers are searching for ways to appeal to the illiterate class anyways:

Competition is forcing once-staid publications to spice up their content. Mumbai’s Midday tabloid has introduced a bikini-clad version of Birtain’s topless “page-three” girls, called the “Midday mate”.

The article also helped me understand why these newspapers have such atrocious websites…it’s easy to forget: only 1.2% of India’s population is online.

Laying the tracks, but still not riding the trains.