The first Urdu newspaper, Jam-e-Jahan-Numa, was published on this day from Calcutta, by a Bengali, Harihar Dutta. Its editor was Munshi Sadasukhlal, a Punjabi. The printer was a British man, William Hopkins. Harihar’s father was Tarachand Dutta, a journalist who had co-founded Sambad Kaumudi, a Bengali newspaper published by Rammohun Roy that had campaigned actively for the abolition of sati.
Jam-e-Jahan-Numa was printed at Mission Press, 11, Circular Road, and published from No. 2, Colootola. It was priced at Rs 2 a month and published every Wednesday. Its publication stopped 5 years later. Other Urdu newspapers would start flourishing from the next decade and would play an important role in the nationalist movements.
