Question

In order to control the media in India, 'Acts' were passed in?
1. 1835, 1867, 1878, 1908
2. 1854, 1864, 1872, 1910
3. 1854, 1872, 1908, 1910
4. 1867, 1908, 1910, 1919

Answer 1

Correct Answer - Option 1 : 1835, 1867, 1878, 1908

The correct answer is 1835, 1867, 1878, 1908.

• James Augustus Hickey in 1780 started The Bengal Gazette or Calcutta General Advertiser, the first newspaper in India. 
• Other newspapers such as The India Gazette, The Calcutta Gazette, The Madras Courier (1785), and The Bombay Herald (1789) soon followed. 
• Press Act, 1835 was enacted by Lord Metcalfe.
• Lord Metcalfe is also known as the Liberator of the Indian Press as he ceased the earlier restrictions which were imposed by the Licensing Regulations Act,1823. 
• Registration Act, 1867 replaced Metcalfe’s Act of 1835 (Press Act, 1835) and was of a regulatory, not restrictive, nature.
• As per the Act, Registration Act, 1867:-
  • ​Every book/newspaper was required to print the name of the printer and the publisher and the place of the publication.
  • A copy was to be submitted to the local government within one month of the publication of a book.
• Vernacular Press Act, 1878 was designed to ‘better control’ the vernacular press and effectively punish and repress seditious writing.
• Vernacular Press Act, 1878 was enacted to control the vernacular press and to punish the critical writings of the newspapers. 
• Newspaper (Incitement to Offences) Act,1908 was passed by Lord Curzon to repress the activities of the Extremist nationalist.
  • This Act gave the power to the District Magistrate to confiscate the press property if it publishes any objectionable material against the policies of the government. 
  • Appeal against the confiscation of the property can be done in High Court within 15 days.

• The Bombay Samachar, founded in 1822 and printed in Gujarati is the oldest newspaper in Asia still in print. 
• On 30 May 1826 Udant Martand, the first Hindi-language newspaper published in India, started from Calcutta (now Kolkata), published every Tuesday by Pt. Jugal Kishore Shukla.