Mysuru Mithra

About Mysuru Mithra

Mysuru Mithra is a Kannada-language morning daily newspaper published from Mysuru, Karnataka. Its name means "Mysore Friend". Launched in 1978 — though the Indian Film Archive dates it to 1980, a discrepancy this profile notes — it was founded, edited and published by K. B. Ganapathy, who died on 13 July 2025 at the age of eighty-five. Its sister publication is Star of Mysore, the English evening daily. The paper is published by Academy Newspapers Private Limited from Bannimantap, Mysuru, circulates across five districts — Mysuru, Mandya, Kodagu, Hassan and Chamarajanagar — and maintains its website at mysurumithra.com with its e-paper at epaper.mysurumithra.com. The paper is noted for its reportage during the search for the bandit Veerappan.

"Mysore Friend": the name

"Mysuru Mithra" means "Mysore Friend" — a name that declares the paper's relationship with its city: not a distant observer but a friend of Mysuru, sharing its readers' affection for the heritage city. The name places the paper in the intimate tradition of the city daily — the paper as the citizen's companion, the friend who brings the morning news. For Mysuru's readers, the name is a promise of identification: the daily that loves the city it reports.

K. B. Ganapathy: founder, editor, publisher (d. 13 July 2025)

Mysuru Mithra was founded, edited and published by K. B. Ganapathy — the proprietor-editor who embodied the paper for nearly five decades, until his death on 13 July 2025 at the age of eighty-five. Ganapathy was among the legendary figures of Karnataka's district press: a journalist-entrepreneur who built a Kannada morning daily and an English evening daily from Mysuru, reporting the region through the Emergency, the liberalisation and the digital age. His passing marked the end of an era for the Mysuru press — the founder's death closing the founding chapter of both his papers. The institution he built, through Academy Newspapers Private Limited, continues.

1978 or 1980: the founding date

The paper's launch is dated to 1978 in standard references, including Wikipedia — but the Indian Film Archive dates it to 1980. This profile reports the discrepancy explicitly: the weight of evidence favours 1978, but the IFA's 1980 dating is noted for the record. Such two-year discrepancies are common in the documentation of the district press, where founding memories and registration dates may differ. What is not disputed is the paper's continuous publication across nearly five decades — the substantive fact beneath the dating question.

Star of Mysore: the English sister

Mysuru Mithra's sister publication is Star of Mysore — the English evening daily that, with the Kannada morning paper, gives Academy Newspapers a complete hold on Mysuru's press: the morning in Kannada, the evening in English. The bilingual morning-evening combination serves the city's two great readerships: the Kannada public with its morning daily, the professional and business classes with their evening paper. Few district publishers maintain dailies in two languages and two dayparts; the Ganapathy group's achievement marks it as among Karnataka's most complete regional publishing houses.

Five districts: the circulation area

Mysuru Mithra circulates across five districts — Mysuru, Mandya, Kodagu, Hassan and Chamarajanagar — covering the old Mysore region's heartland: the heritage city, the sugar belt, the coffee highlands, the temple towns and the forested south. Each district has its own news agenda: Mysuru's heritage and palace politics, Mandya's sugarcane and Cauvery waters, Kodagu's coffee and distinct culture, Hassan's temples and agriculture, Chamarajanagar's forests and border dynamics. The five-district footprint makes the paper the regional daily of southern Karnataka's interior — the morning friend of the old Mysore country.

Serving five districts requires the newsgathering infrastructure of a regional paper: correspondents in Mandya, Kodagu, Hassan and Chamarajanagar filing nightly to the Mysuru desk, district editions tailored to each area's news, and distribution networks reaching the coffee estates and forest villages. The five-district footprint is the operational expression of the "Mysore Friend" identity: friendship extended across the old Mysore country.

The Veerappan reportage

Mysuru Mithra is noted for its reportage during the search for Veerappan — the sandalwood smuggler-bandit whose two-decade career of crime in the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border forests was among independent India's most sensational law-enforcement sagas. Covering the Veerappan hunt required reporters willing to work the forest fringe, to cultivate sources in the police Special Task Force and among forest communities, and to report a story of national fascination with local knowledge. The paper's noted coverage of this saga — culminating in Veerappan's death in 2004 — demonstrated the district daily's capacity for major investigative journalism: the Mysuru paper reporting the story the nation's press followed.

mysurumithra.com and the e-paper

The paper maintains its website at mysurumithra.com and its e-paper at epaper.mysurumithra.com — digital properties carrying the "Mysore Friend" to screens worldwide. For the Mysuru diaspora and for younger readers, the website provides the paper's five-district journalism digitally; the e-paper preserves the print edition's complete experience. The Academy Newspapers group's digital presence, maintained alongside the print dailies, represents the founder's legacy carried into the online age.

Bannimantap: the Mysuru base

The paper is published by Academy Newspapers Private Limited from Bannimantap, Mysuru — the locality that houses the group's publishing operations. Bannimantap, in the northern part of the heritage city, is the industrial-home of the Ganapathy press: the offices, the presses, the distribution centre from which the morning daily reaches five districts before dawn. For nearly five decades, the Bannimantap operation has been the engine room of Mysuru's bilingual press — the physical plant behind the "Mysore Friend" and its English sister.

The Ganapathy era: five decades of proprietor-editorship

K. B. Ganapathy's proprietor-editorship of Mysuru Mithra — from its 1978 founding to his death on 13 July 2025 — spanned nearly five decades: one of the longest continuous newspaper stewardships in Karnataka's press history. Such longevity concentrates a paper's institutional memory in a single individual: the editor who reported every Mysuru development since the late 1970s, who knew the region's political families across generations, who built the bilingual morning-evening operation from scratch. Ganapathy's era encompassed the Emergency's aftermath, the Janata interlude, the rise of Karnataka's regional politics, and the digital transformation — the complete modern history of the old Mysore region, reported by the man who owned the paper that reported it.

After Ganapathy: the institutional paper

Ganapathy's death on 13 July 2025, at eighty-five, tested whether Mysuru Mithra was a personal venture or an institution. Papers built around charismatic founders sometimes falter when the founder departs; those with deep organisational roots — professional newsrooms, established distribution, corporate structures like Academy Newspapers Private Limited — continue. The group's bilingual operation, its five-district footprint, and its digital properties represent the institutional base on which the post-Ganapathy paper rests. The "Mysore Friend" that the founder created must now prove it can thrive as the institution he built.

Mysuru: the heritage city's press

Mysuru — the heritage city of palaces, the Dasara festival, the sandalwood and silk traditions — supports a press worthy of its cultural eminence. The city's newspapers report the Wadiyar legacy's contemporary echoes, the Dasara's annual transformation of the city, the university's intellectual life, and the tourism economy. Mysuru Mithra, the "Mysore Friend", has been the Kannada voice of this heritage for nearly five decades — the daily that loves the city it reports, in the language of its people, from its Bannimantap home.