Metal Asia: Kolkata's Monthly Magazine for the Non-Ferrous Metals Industry
Metal Asia is a monthly magazine published by ISR Infomedia Private Limited in Kolkata, West Bengal, devoted to the non-ferrous metals industry in India and abroad. It covers aluminium, copper, zinc and the other metals that are not iron and steel — the metals of power transmission, transport, construction, packaging and the energy transition — for industrialists, analysts, researchers and students. Metal Asia is one of three publications from ISR Infomedia, alongside the long-running ferrous title Iron & Steel Review and the annual Steel, Metals and Minerals International. Together the three titles give the Kolkata publisher a complete metals list, and Metal Asia's assignment within it is precise: to keep readers abreast of developments in the non-ferrous sector with the same depth its sister title has brought to steel since 1957.
Published by ISR Infomedia, Kolkata
ISR Infomedia was founded on 1 April 1993 in Calcutta — as Kolkata was then officially known — and describes itself as a pioneer in industrial magazines in India. The company brought under its umbrella a flagship, Iron & Steel Review, that had been published independently since 1957, when India stood at the foothold of industrialisation and, as the company notes, such intensive reporting of the sector was unheard of. ISR Infomedia's offices are at Merlin Links, 5th Floor, Block 5E and 5F, 166B S. P. Mukherjee Road, Kolkata 700026. Its managing director and editor, Santosh Mahanti, leads a company whose stated belief is in credibility and expertise, and whose magazines are positioned as sources for in-depth and up-to-date knowledge about the ferrous and non-ferrous industries in India and around the world. Metal Asia inherits that house style and applies it to the lighter metals.
The Non-Ferrous Brief: Aluminium, Copper, Zinc and Beyond
The distinction Metal Asia exists to serve is a real one in metals publishing. Ferrous coverage revolves around iron and steel plants, furnaces and flat and long products. Non-ferrous coverage follows a different set of industries: primary aluminium smelters and downstream rolling and extrusion, copper smelting, refining and rod production, zinc and lead, and the recycling and alloy businesses that surround them. The publisher describes Metal Asia as focusing on the non-ferrous metals sector, with latest news from India and abroad keeping readers abreast of the industry's developments. Recent issues illustrate the downstream emphasis: the magazine's 2026 issues have featured the usages and downstream business of aluminium, examining how the metal is converted into products and markets rather than stopping at the smelter gate. That focus matters because value in non-ferrous metals increasingly sits downstream, in foil, conductors, castings, extrusions and components.
India, the World's Second-Largest Aluminium Producer
The industry Metal Asia reports on has grown into a globally significant one. India's Ministry of Mines records that the country is the world's second-largest producer of aluminium and among the top ten producers of refined copper. Production figures underline the scale: primary aluminium production rose to a record 42 lakh tonnes in the financial year 2024–25, up from 41.6 lakh tonnes the year before, while refined copper production grew by 12.6 per cent to 5.73 lakh tonnes in the same year. Zinc concentrate, bauxite and lead production also expanded. The ministry links continued growth in aluminium and copper to strong economic activity in user sectors such as energy, infrastructure, construction, automotive and machinery. For a monthly trade magazine, those official numbers are the backdrop against which company news — expansions, smelter maintenance, new capacity such as large copper projects, import and export movements — acquires meaning for readers deciding what to buy, sell or build.
What a Monthly Issue Contains
As a monthly, Metal Asia works at the rhythm of industry rather than of news tickers. Its formula, shared across the ISR stable, combines industry news from India and abroad, feature articles on a metal or a downstream segment, coverage of industry events, and market-facing information for producers, traders and users. The publisher also sells the three titles together in a combo pack, presenting the combined issues of Iron & Steel Review, Metal Asia and Steel, Metals and Minerals International as extensive coverage of varied aspects of ferrous and non-ferrous metals globally. Readers who follow both sides of the metals business — a common pattern among diversified metals groups, traders and equipment suppliers — can therefore take Metal Asia as the non-ferrous half of a single subscription. Back issues are offered through the publisher's digital library and e-copy store, with individual issues of Metal Asia listed for 2026, including its March, April and May numbers.
Subscriptions and Pricing
Metal Asia is sold by subscription in both hard copy and digital copy, at the same listed price for the Indian market: 10,000 rupees for one year, 20,000 rupees for two years and 30,000 rupees for three years, with a single copy priced at 900 rupees. Those figures place it firmly in the professional information market rather than the newsstand market; this is a title bought by companies and institutions because it is useful in their work. The publisher notes that online purchase has at times been inactive and invites readers to subscribe by writing to its contact email or calling its Kolkata numbers — a reminder that much Indian B2B publishing still runs on direct relationships between publisher and subscriber. The combo pack of all three ISR titles is listed at 26,200 rupees for one year in print or digital form.
Events, Webinars and the Wider ISR Activity
ISR Infomedia's work is not confined to print. The company also hosts webinars and events for the global iron and steel and metallurgical industries, attended by leading industrial firms, extending its magazines' role as convenors of their sectors. For Metal Asia's readership, such activity matters because non-ferrous metals are a relationship business: smelters, refiners, downstream processors, traders, recyclers and large users meet repeatedly at industry gatherings, and a magazine that both reports on and convenes its industry becomes part of its infrastructure. The publisher's presence on trade directories as a manufacturer and publisher of technical magazines, offering Iron & Steel Review, Metal Asia, Casting Technology and Steel, Metals and Minerals International, reflects the same B2B orientation.
Kolkata and India's Metals Geography
Kolkata is a fitting home for a metals magazine. Eastern India holds much of the country's mineral wealth and several of its historic metals institutions, and the city served for decades as the commercial capital through which mining and metals trade was organised. ISR Infomedia's three-decade presence on S. P. Mukherjee Road places Metal Asia inside that tradition, even as its subject matter — aluminium smelters in Odisha and Chhattisgarh, copper refining on the coasts, zinc mining in Rajasthan — is spread across the whole country and connected to world markets priced in London and Shanghai. A Kolkata monthly that tracks Indian and foreign non-ferrous news alike mirrors the industry's own geography: rooted in Indian mines and plants, priced and traded globally.
Why Metal Asia Matters
Metal Asia matters because the non-ferrous metals have moved to the centre of India's industrial story. Aluminium and copper are the metals of electrification — of transmission lines, renewable energy, electric vehicles and data centres — and zinc protects the steel that construction consumes. Yet these industries are covered by general business media mainly at moments of price spikes or large deals. A dedicated monthly, from a publisher whose metals lineage runs back to 1957, supplies the continuing record: production, downstream development, trade and technology, month after month. For readers of worldnm.com mapping India's specialist magazine sector, Metal Asia represents the trade press at its most functional — a Kolkata-published title that exists because an industry needs its own paper of record.
