''Mangaluru Samachara'' or ''Mangalooru Samachara'' which literally means ''"The news of

Mangalore Mangalore (), officially known as Mangaluru, is a major port city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It is located between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats about west of Bangalore, the state capital, 20 km north of Karnataka–Ke ...

"'' is the first

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as p ...

published in

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

. It was produced by a German, Rev. Hermann Friedrich Mögling of the

Basel Mission The Basel Mission was a Christian missionary society based in Switzerland. It was active from 1815 to 2001, when it transferred the operative work to , the successor organization of ''Kooperation Evangelischer Kirchen und Missione'' (KEM), found ...

beginning in 1843. The paper was printed using

stone slab A stone slab is a big stone, flat and relatively thin, often of rectangular or almost rectangular form. They are generally used for paving floors, for covering walls or as headstones. In dolmens Most dolmen constructions were built using stone ...

s, which exist to this day in the Basel Mission Printing Press in Balmatta,

. It was a very difficult task to publish a newspaper at that time because there was no simple way of communicating news and other written words to the general public.

History

In 1836 a diminutive German arrived on the shores of Mangalore armed with the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...

, seeking to spread the message of the

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

. Seven years later, in 1843, the

Christian mission A Christian mission is an organized effort for the propagation of the Christian faith. Missions involve sending individuals and groups across boundaries, most commonly geographical boundaries, to carry on evangelism or other activities, such as ...

ary had mastered

well enough to launch Karnataka’s first vernacular newspaper, ''Mangalura Samachara.'' With that enterprising leap in

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the " news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (pro ...

, Hermann Frederick Mogling of the Basel Mission, for which Mangalore was the "most important centre" of its work in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, not just propelled 19th century Karnataka into the world of new, the four-page weekly Mangaluru Samachara even published news on Afghanistan - but took the pioneering step in translating several literary works in Kannada into German. According to Benet G Ammanna of the archives department of the

Karnataka Theological College Karnataka Theological College ''(founded in 1847)'' is an ecumenical seminary catering to the Kannada-speaking students wishing to pursue the priestly vocation. KTC is located in Mangalore of Karnataka in South India, and is affiliated to the na ...

, the newspaper contained eight different aspects that included ‘voora varthamana’ (local news), ‘sarakarada niroopagalu’ (

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...

and its laws and regulations), ‘sarva rajya varthamanagalu’ (state news), ‘nuthanavada ashcharya suddigalu’ (unusual news), ‘anyara nadathegalu’ (mannerisms), ‘subuddigalu’ (good conduct), ‘kathegalu (moral stories and songs of

Purandaradasa Purandara Dasa (IAST: Purandara dāsa) ( 1470 – 1565) was a Haridasa philosopher and a follower of Madhwacharya 's Dwaitha philosophy -saint from present-day Karnataka, India. He was a composer, singer and one of the chief founding-prop ...

) and an announcement stating that "anybody can send the news and it will be published if it is true."

References

{{Asia topic, List of newspapers in Kannada-language newspapers Newspapers published in Karnataka 1843 establishments in British India Mass media in Mangalore

History

See also

References