Ekdin

About Ekdin

Overview

Ekdin (Bengali: একদিন, meaning "One Day") is a Bengali-language daily newspaper published from Kolkata, West Bengal. Founded in 2006 by veteran journalist Suman Chattopadhyay, it is counted among the widely circulated Bengali dailies of India, with a reported daily circulation of around 97,080 copies. Published in broadsheet format from its headquarters at 16A Brabourne Road in Kolkata, it covers state and national news with a strong emphasis on West Bengal's politics and local affairs. Its e-paper is available at ekdin-epaper.com, and its news portal at ekdinnews.com.

Ekdin's history is unusually eventful for a paper barely two decades old: founded by a star editor, sold to the Chakra Group, bought by the Siliguri-based Darpan Press — which abruptly shut it down in January 2014, leaving some 120 journalists and staff jobless — and then revived later that year by Narsingha Broadcasting Pvt. Ltd., its current owner. That story of closure and resurrection has made it one of the most talked-about titles in the Bengali press.

The founding: Suman Chattopadhyay's paper

Ekdin was founded in 2006 by Suman Chattopadhyay, a veteran journalist who served as its first editor. Chattopadhyay was one of the most prominent editors in the Bengali press, and the launch of Ekdin under his editorship was a significant event in Kolkata's newspaper market — a new Bengali daily entering a field dominated by long-established titles. The paper's RNI registration, WBBEN/2006/17404, records its 2006 birth and its Kolkata publication city.

The title — "One Day" — suggested a paper oriented to the present moment, a daily chronicle of the day that was. Under Chattopadhyay's editorship it established itself as a serious Bengali broadsheet with ambitions beyond the merely local.

Sale to the Chakra Group

After its founding years, the paper changed hands: it was sold to the Chakra Group following Chattopadhyay's departure to join Ei Samay (Eyi Shomoy), the Times Group's Bengali daily. The sale marked the end of the founder-editor era and the beginning of a period of corporate ownership changes that would define the paper's turbulent middle years.

The Chakra Group's tenure was itself transitional. The group later sold Ekdin onward, and the paper entered the ownership of the Siliguri-based Darpan Press on 1 October 2013 — a north Bengal publishing house taking control of a Kolkata daily.

The shutdown: January 2014

The Darpan Press era ended almost as soon as it began, in one of the most abrupt newspaper closures in recent Indian press history. On 14 January 2014, staff learned that the RNI registration had been transferred into the name of Darpan Press from the Chakra Group; that same evening, the owner called a meeting and announced the decision to close the daily. On 15 January, a meeting between employees and management confirmed it: the newspaper would not continue. Close to 120 employees — journalists and technical staff — were left jobless, some of them learning of the closure with a single day's notice.

The shutdown sent a shock through eastern India's press. The Darpan management had promised, at the time of taking over the paper, that Ekdin would never shut and that its hundred-plus employees would never lose their jobs — promises that lasted barely three months. A senior journalist recalled the disbelief in the newsroom: a newspaper closed in a day's notice. The episode became a cautionary tale about the fragility of regional newspaper ownership in the internet era, when, as press observers noted, several eastern Indian print publications were being "put to sleep" amid the growing influence of the internet and a concurrent economic slump.

Revival: Narsingha Broadcasting relaunches Ekdin

The paper did not stay dead for long. Kolkata-based Narsingha Broadcasting acquired the publishing rights from the old owners and re-started publication of the Bengali daily on 29 June 2014 — less than six months after the shutdown. Darpan Press's chief executive confirmed that the rights had been sold to Narsingha Broadcasting, which re-launched the newspaper with Rhitobrata Bhattacharya as editor-in-chief.

The revival was swift enough that the paper's readership and market presence could be rebuilt rather than started from scratch. Under Narsingha Broadcasting Pvt. Ltd. — the paper's owner to this day — Ekdin returned to the newsstands as a going concern, its masthead intact and its newsroom restaffed.

The television ambition

At the time of the relaunch, Narsingha Broadcasting disclosed ambitions well beyond print: the company planned to foray into television with a Bengali satellite news channel, likely to carry the Ekdin name. It had already applied for uplinking and downlinking licences, and the channel's format was designed with Kolkata's cosmopolitan audience in mind — a Bengali channel with ten-minute slots set aside for Hindi and English news bulletins, catering to the non-Bengali television viewers settled in Kolkata and other states.

The plan reflected the convergence logic of the 2010s regional media market: a newspaper brand extended into broadcast, sharing a newsroom and a name. The company indicated it might lease equipment and teleport facilities initially, keeping the entry costs manageable.

Ownership and editorial leadership today

Ekdin is currently owned by Narshingha Broadcasting Pvt. Ltd., with Krishnanand Singh listed as publisher and Santosh Kumar Singh as editor. The paper's headquarters are at 16A Brabourne Road, 4th Floor, Kolkata 700001 — in the commercial heart of the city, close to the historic newspaper and business district.

The stability of the current ownership, following the churn of the Chakra and Darpan years, has allowed the paper to rebuild its institutional continuity. Its reported daily circulation of 97,080 copies places it among the substantial Bengali dailies by volume.

Coverage and readership

As a Bengali broadsheet daily, Ekdin covers national and international news alongside its core strength: West Bengal's politics, administration and local issues. Its readership spans the state's Bengali-reading public — the urban middle class of Kolkata and the districts, students and aspirants who use newspapers for competitive-examination preparation, and the general reader seeking a Bengali account of the day's events.

The paper's sections follow the standard architecture of a Bengali daily — news, state and districts, sports, entertainment, business, editorials and features — with the particular attention to Kolkata and West Bengal affairs that defines its market position.

The e-paper and digital edition

Ekdin's e-paper is available at ekdin-epaper.com, where readers can access the daily edition — city-wise and district-wise — and its news portal at ekdinnews.com carries its reporting to the web. The digital editions have extended the paper's reach to the Bengali diaspora and to younger readers who consume news on their phones, while the e-paper serves the traditional readership that prefers the full printed page in digital form.

For students preparing for examinations such as the IAS, SSC, RRB, PSC and UPSC, the e-paper's sections on national and international news, science and technology are widely used as current-affairs material — a secondary audience that many Bengali dailies cultivate.

Ekdin in the Bengali press

Few newspapers have lived as much history in under twenty years as Ekdin: a founder-editor launch in 2006, two corporate sales, a traumatic shutdown that cost 120 people their jobs, and a resurrection within six months under Narsingha Broadcasting. That it survived the closure that was meant to end it — and returned to the newsstands the same year — is the defining fact of its identity. In the competitive Bengali daily market of Kolkata, Ekdin stands as the paper that refused to die: "one day" at a time, every day, from Brabourne Road.