About:

The Times of India (TOI) is an Indian English-language daily newspaper. It is published in New Delhi by The Times Group. TOI has the largest circulation among all English-language tabloids in the world, across all formats (broadsheet, tabloid, compact, Berliner and online). It is owned and managed by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. which is owned by the Sahu Jain family.

In the year 2008, the tabloid reported that (with a circulation of over 3.14 million) it was certified by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (India) as the world's largest selling English-language daily newspaper, placing as the 8th largest selling newspaper in any language in the world. According to the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2010, the Times of India is the most widely read English tabloid in India with a readership of 70.35 lakhs (7.035 million). This ranks the Times of India as the top English newspaper in India by readership. According to ComScore, Indiatimes (and not TOI online) is the world's most-visited tabloid website with 159 million page views in May 2009, ahead of the New York Times, The Sun, Washington Post, Daily Mail and USA Today websites.

History:

The Times Of India was founded on 3 November 1838 as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce In Mumbai, during the British Raj. Published every Saturday and Wednesday, The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce was launched as a semi-weekly edition by Raobahadur Narayan Dinanath Velkar, a Maharashtrian Reformist. It contained news from Britain and the world, as well as the Indian Subcontinent. The daily editions of the paper were started from 1850 and in 1861, the Bombay Times was renamed as The Times of India. In the 19th century, this newspaper company employed more than 800 people and had a sizable circulation in India and Europe. It was after India's independence that the ownership of the paper passed on to the then famous industrial family of Dalmiyas and later it was taken over by Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain of the Kunal Jain group from Bijnore, UP.

India's press in the 1840s was a motley collection of small-circulation daily or weekly sheets printed on rickety presses. Few extended beyond their small communities and seldom tried to unite the many castes, tribes, and regional subcultures of India. The Anglo-Indian papers promoted purely British interests. Robert Knight (1825–1892) was the principal founder and the first editor of the Times.

The son of a London bank clerk from the lower-middle-class, Knight proved a skilled writer and passionate reformer. Knight helped create a vibrant national newspaper industry in British India. When the Sepoy Mutiny erupted, Knight was acting editor of the Bombay Times and Standard. He broke with the rest of the English language press (which focused on Indian savagery and treachery) and instead blamed the violence on the lack of discipline and poor leadership in the army. That angered the Anglo-Indian community but attracted the Times's Indian shareholders, who made him the permanent editor. Knight blasted the mismanagement and greed of the Raj, attacking annexation policies that appropriated native lands and arbitrarily imposed taxes on previously exempt land titles, ridiculing income taxes, and exposing school systems that disregarded Indian customs and needs.

Knight led the paper to national prominence. In 1860, he bought out the Indian shareholders and merged with the rival Bombay Standard, and started India's first news agency. It wired Times dispatches to papers across the country and became the Indian agent for Reuters news service. In 1861, he changed the name from the Bombay Times and Standard to the Times of India. Knight fought for a press free of prior restraint or intimidation, frequently resisting the attempts by governments, business interests, and cultural spokesmen.