Question

Identify the name of the gentleman, who started the First English Newspaper of India
A. Balshastri Jambhekar
B. Bau Mahajan
C. James August Hickey.
D. Sir Johan Marshal

Answer 1

Hint: The first English newspaper of India was published in $1799$. The first English paper name is Hickey’s Bengal Gazette. It was published once a week. It was not only the first English but also the first newspaper that was printed in Asia.

Complete answer:
The first English newspaper gets its name from its publisher named James Augusts Hickey. James August Hicky belongs to the Irish. He published the newspaper on $29$ January $1780$. He started editing the Bengal Gazette. Bengal Gazette was a weekly magazine that depicted itself as a commercial paper open to all, but influenced by none’. So it was a private English enterprise, pleased by its independence from colonial impact, that started English printing in India. Besides the first page of Hickey’s Bengal Gazette, all other pages were in Anglo-Indian language. The first page was in the English newspaper.
In the mid-sixteenth century, the printing press first approached Goa with Portuguese missionaries. Jesuit priests learned Konkani and printed several tracts. By $1674$, about $50$ books were printed in the Konkani and in Kanara languages. By $1710$, Dutch Protestant missionaries had printed thirty-two texts in the Tamil language, most of them being translations of previous works. The English language press did not develop in India until quite late even though the English East India Company had started to import presses from the late seventeenth century.
So, the correct answer is Option C.

Note: By the end of the eighteenth century, a number of newspapers and journals appeared in print. There were Indians, too, who started publishing Indian newspapers. The first to emerge was the weekly Bengal Gazette, brought out by Gangadhar Bhattacharya, who was firmly associated with Rammohun Roy.