Punjab Kesari (lit.'The Lion of Punjab') is a Hindi-language newspaper published from many centres in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi in India. It is owned by the Punjab Kesari group (The Hindsamachar Ltd.). It is one of the four newspapers started by the group; the other three are Hind Samachar in Urdu, Jagbani in Punjabi languages and Navodaya Times in Hindi languages from DelhiNCR.
The newspaper was established by Lala Jagat Narain and later on his elder son Romesh Chander took over the reins. However, during the days of terrorism in Punjab, both were assassinated, in 1981 and 1984 respectively.[2] The management also established Shaheed Parivar Fund (martyrs' welfare fund) to provide help to the affected families.[3]
Publication centres
The newspaper has a daily circulation of approximate 1,571,000 copies which are printed from the following locations:
Digital Portals: publish news on their respective websites from two different places in India, i.e., Delhi on PunjabKesari.com and Jalandhar on PunjabKesari.in.[6] As per Alexa, a web traffic data and analytics, Jalandhar group's website PunjabKesari.in is ranked 523[7] in India and Delhi group's website PunjabKesari.com is ranked 9425[8] in India on 17 March 2018.
Bollywood Kesari: Delhi group launched a Bollywood niche website under the brand name Bollywood Kesari.[9]
Cricket Kesari: Delhi group launched a Cricket niche website recently under the brand name Cricket Kesari[10] and its Facebook page has over 121k likes.[11] sports Punjab kesari site is: sports.punjabkesari.in
Shayari: Delhi group also launched a Shayari specific Facebook page named Shayari[12]
During 1974 emergency in India, when undeclared censorship was imposed on the press and the power supply was discontinued, the newspaper was printed by the alternative arrangements with tractors on diesel
1984–92 : During the terrorism in Punjab, due to the continuous threats and attack on media staff, the production, printing and distribution, every process was under strict police protection