Press Trust of India: India’s Largest News Agency

Most Indian news you read did not come from the newspaper’s own reporter. It likely came from one shared wire service, owned by the newspapers themselves.

1Chapter 1: India’s Largest News Agency

Must Know

What PTI is

• The Press Trust of India (PTI) is India’s largest news agency.

Incorporated in 1947

• PTI was incorporated in Madras on 27 August 1947.
• Kasturi Srinivasan of The Hindu was its founding chairman.

Operations began in 1949

• PTI began full news operations on 1 February 1949.
• It took over from the Associated Press of India.
• It became fully independent of Reuters in 1953.

A non-profit cooperative

• PTI is owned collectively by more than 450 Indian newspapers.
• Member newspapers are both owners and primary clients.
• They contribute capital through share subscriptions.

Base and clients

• Its headquarters is the PTI Building, on Parliament Street, New Delhi.
• It supplies news to The Times of India, The Hindu, Hindustan Times, Doordarshan and All India Radio.

2Chapter 2: Reach and the Emergency Merger

Good to Know

More than text

• PTI runs PTI-Bhasha, its Hindi-language news service.
• It also runs PTI Photo and PTI Graphics divisions.

Correspondents and offices

• It has around 400 part-time correspondents at Indian district headquarters, beyond its full-time staff.
• Its international offices include Bangkok, Beijing, Dubai, Moscow, New York, London and Washington D.C.
• In January 2022, PTI had over 500 full-time employees, including about 400 journalists.

The forced merger of 1976

• In February 1976, during the Emergency, the government forcibly merged PTI with three other agencies.
• They were United News of India, Hindustan Samachar and Samachar Bharati.
• The merged state-run agency was called Samachar.
• Samachar was widely criticised as an arm of government propaganda.
• When the Janata Party came to power in 1977, the merger was undone.
• PTI resumed independent news operations from April 1978.
• See The Emergency (1975-77) and Journalism in India.

3Chapter 3: Exam Traps

Great to Know

Incorporation is not operations

• PTI was incorporated in 1947.
• But it began actual news operations only on 1 February 1949, after taking over from the Associated Press of India.

A cooperative, not a company

• PTI is not government-owned or a single-owner company.
• It belongs collectively to the newspapers that subscribe to it.
• The 1976 forced merger shows the government has not always respected this structure.
• Two of its major clients, Doordarshan and All India Radio, come under Prasar Bharati: India’s Public Broadcaster.

1953, not 1947

• PTI’s independence from Reuters came in 1953, four years after it began operating.
• It did not come at its 1947 founding.
• The two milestones are often mixed up.

Quick Q&A

• When was PTI incorporated? 27 August 1947.
• When did operations begin? 1 February 1949.
• Independent of Reuters? 1953.
• Who owns PTI? Over 450 newspapers.
• Emergency merger agency? Samachar.