Question

Whose birthday is celebrated as patrakar din in Maharashtra?
a. Bal Gangadhar Tilak
b. Balshastri Jambhekar
c. Bhau Mahajan
d. Mahatma Jyotirao Phule

Answer 1

Hint:
Patrakar din or Journalist’s Day is celebrated in Maharashtra every year. This celebration is in order to commemorate the efforts of the father of Marathi journalism and is held on January 6 each year.


Complete solution:
Balshastri Jambhekar was born in Devgadh in Maharashtra in 1812. He was one of the people who realized the importance of the print media in getting the ideas of revolution to the people. He was sure that for the Indian people to be strong enough to overthrow the British, a strong communication stream was necessary. This was the reason behind him starting the newspaper Darpan, the first newspaper in the Marathi language. It was first published on January 6 in the year 1832.

Additional information: the newspaper Darpan featured two columns, one in English and one in Marathi. The price of the newspaper was 1 rupee at that time. There was a large amount of social impact because of the paper. The primary idea that Balshastri dealt with in his paper was Widow remarriage, which he tried to explain in a scientific and logical approach.


Hence, the correct answer is option B.

Note:
He also knew that public resources of information like libraries were very important. The Bombay Native General Library was created for this reason. Many societies and unions were also started by him to support causes like education, improvement of social life and so on. He also started a magazine which released an issue every month. It was named Digdarshan. He was fluent in 8 languages including Greek, Latin, and French.