UpdateBot at 20:47, 23 April 2022

2022-04-23T20:47:45Z

New page

{{Short description|Former Indian investigative newspaper}}
{{for|the Portuguese music magazine, which started as newspaper|Blitz (Portuguese magazine)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2018}}
{{Use Indian English|date=October 2018}}
{{Infobox newspaper
| name = Blitz
| logo =
| image =
| caption =
| type = [[Weekly newspaper]]/Weekly newsmagazine
| format = [[Tabloid (newspaper format)|Tabloid]]
| owners =
| founder = [[Russi Karanjia]]
| publisher =
| president =
| editor = Russi Karanjia
| chiefeditor =
| depeditor =
| assoceditor =
| maneditor =
| generalmanager =
| newseditor =
| managingeditordesign =
| campuseditor =
| campuschief =
| metroeditor =
| metrochief =
| opeditor =
| sportseditor =
| photoeditor =
| staff =
| foundation = {{launch date|1 February 1941}}
| political =
| language = English, Hindi, Urdu, Marathi
| ceased publication = Mid 1990s
| relaunched =
| headquarters = [[Mumbai, India]]
| circulation =
| circulation_date =
| circulation_ref =
| sister newspapers =
| ISSN =
| oclc =
| RNI =
| website =
| free =
| dirinteractive =
| publishing_country = India
| publishing_city =
}}

'''''Blitz''''' was a popular investigative weekly [[tabloid newspaper]] or [[newsmagazine]] published and edited by [[Russi Karanjia]] from Bombay.<ref>{{cite web|title=Karanjia and his Blitz|publisher=Hindustan Times|url=http://www.hindustantimes.com/news-feed/viewsvirsanghvi/karanjia-and-his-blitz/article1-273426.aspx|author=Vir Sanghvi|date=2 February 2008|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140502000132/http://www.hindustantimes.com/news-feed/viewsvirsanghvi/karanjia-and-his-blitz/article1-273426.aspx|archive-date=2 May 2014}}</ref> Started in 1941, it was India's first weekly tabloid and focussed on investigative journalism and political news.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=TeRWxaJLoDUC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false The tabloid and the city, in Mumbai Fables, Gyan Prakash, Princeton University Press, 2010, p. 158-204]</ref> It was published in English, and with editions in [[Hindi]], [[Urdu]] and [[Marathi language|Marathi]] languages.<ref name = "Kulkarni">{{cite web | url = http://www.indianexpress.com/news/he-launched-blitz-on-feb-1-died-on-feb-1it/268196/ | title = He launched Blitz on Feb 1, died on Feb 1-it's no coincidence | access-date = 2011-07-24 | last = Kulkarni | first = Sudheendra | date = 2008-02-02 | publisher = The Indian Express }}</ref>

==History==
First published on 1 February 1941,<ref name=hindu>{{cite web | title = R.K. Karanjia: Living through the Blitz| url = http://www.hindu.com/2008/02/06/stories/2008020652441100.htm | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080209115642/http://www.hindu.com/2008/02/06/stories/2008020652441100.htm | url-status = dead | archive-date = 9 February 2008 |date=6 February 2008| newspaper = [[The Hindu]]| access-date = 2014-05-01}}</ref> it was a pioneer in [[investigative journalism]] in India<ref>{{cite web| title = Russi Karanjia| publisher = Tehelka magazine| url = http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main37.asp?filename=hub160208Russi_Karanjia.asp| volume = 5| issue = 6| date = 16 February 2008| access-date = 2014-05-01| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140502003839/http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main37.asp?filename=hub160208Russi_Karanjia.asp| archive-date = 2 May 2014| url-status = dead}}</ref>

Sudheendra Kulkarni, an Indian politician and journalist who worked with Blitz, said that the decision to launch ''Blitz'' had been taken over a cup of tea. Three patriotic journalists — B. V. Nadkarni, [[B. G. Horniman|Benjamin Horniman]] and Karanjia himself — sat at Wayside Inn, a restaurant located near the historical [[Kala Ghoda]] area in Mumbai to conceptualise the paper.<ref name="Kulkarni" />

The paper was launched from an old Apollo Street building in the Fort locality of Mumbai, then known as [[Bombay]].<ref name="GyanPrakash">{{Cite web|title=528 Gyan Prakash, Blitz's Bombay|url=http://india-seminar.com/2003/528/528%20gyan%20prakash.htm|access-date=2021-01-05|website=india-seminar.com}}</ref>

Its inaugural issue introduced the tabloid as ''Our BLITZ, India's BLITZ against Hitler.''<ref name="GyanPrakash" /> It claimed a circulation of 20,000 within four months of launch, and later said it had a readership of one million some 25 years later.<ref name="GyanPrakash" />

==Prominent journalists and associates==
Cartoonist [[R. K. Laxman]]'s early cartoons would be published in Blitz, and so would [[Abu Abraham]]'s. Cartoonist–cum–architect Cecil Lancelot Dawes contributed heavily to Blitz. His daughter Shirley Dawes also worked for Karanjia for many years before migrating to the West. Noted writer [[K. A. Abbas]] wrote the popular column "Last Page" for Blitz, which ran for over 40 years.<ref name=hindu/> Journalist [[P. Sainath]] worked as deputy editor with ''Blitz'' for over a decade before he started writing about rural poverty and winning the [[Magsaysay Award]].<ref name = "Kulkarni"/>

Blitz was founded Karanjia, who had entered journalism with the then British-owned ''The Times of India'', had then briefly edited ''The Sunday Standard'' and the short-lived ''Morning Standard''.<ref name="GyanPrakash" /> On his four-man team besides himself were "Dinkar V. Nadkarni, who had earned a reputation in journalism by penning sensational crime stories in the ''Bombay Sentinel'', edited by the veteran B.G. Horniman; Zahir Babar Kureishi, who wrote a popular column under the pen-name of ''ZABAK''; and Nadir Boman-Behram, who was to look after the advertising and business side of things."<ref name="GyanPrakash" />

Among the prominent leftwing columnists of ''Blitz'' were Ramesh Sanghvi, A. Raghavan, and K.A. Abbas.<ref name="GyanPrakash" />

==Reputation==
''Blitz'' has been described as featuring "sensational accounts of national and international skulduggery" and a "spunky tabloid’s loud and screaming captions and telling photographs".<ref name="GyanPrakash" /> Part of its "self-representation as a radical, people's paper was its tabloid form" and this weekly newsmagazine "revelled in its self-proclaimed role as a racket-buster, exposing truths concealed by the powerful."<ref name="GyanPrakash" /> Blitz called itself Asia’s foremost news magazine.<ref name="GyanPrakash" /> It is seen as having had a "brash tone... set to orchestrate a relentlessly nationalist line strongly inflected by leftist themes."<ref name="GyanPrakash" />

''Blitz'' has also been described as "[a]n unapologetic supporter of Nehru, it vigorously championed secularism, supported socialism and planning, denounced capitalism, and poured scorn on right wing and communal politicians."<ref name="GyanPrakash" /> It supported "leftist internationalism... lauded Afro-Asian solidarity against the capitalist West – the Egyptian President Nasser was its hero – and it loudly and regularly unveiled dark, CIA plots against India and Third World leaders."<ref name="GyanPrakash" /> It was seen as indulging inm "muckraking, over-the top stories calculated to provoke and enrage. It thrived on controversy, and Karanjia was frequently embroiled in defamation suits".<ref name="GyanPrakash" />

Gyan Prakash writes:

<blockquote>The embezzlement of public funds, prostitution rackets, sordid stories of seduction and sex in the name of spiritualism, dark political designs behind high-sounding rhetoric, and the fleecing of the poor by rich industrialists and property developers were staples in the weekly. Even the sports column, called ‘Knock Out’, took on the racket-busting posture. It was written by A.F.S. Talyarkhan, whose bearded, pipe-in-mouth, face on the page appeared to lend gravity to the charges of malfeasance he made against sports authorities. The poor performance of Indian athletes in international competitions, it turned out, could be explained by petty squabbles and power-grabbing by officials behind the scenes.<ref name="GyanPrakash" /></blockquote>

The ''Blitz'' is credited with doing more than all "to make a routine murder trial into a classic story of Bombay’s bourgeois life" in the [[K. M. Nanavati v. State of Maharashtra|Nanavati murder case]] of 1959.<ref name="GyanPrakash" />

==Events organised==
''Blitz'' was associated with organising India's longest cycle race on the occasion of Nehru's 100th birth anniversary—called the ''Blitz''-Nehru Integration Tour of India—which was meant to be done on the lines of the Tour de France or Giro or La Vuelta. It had a top prize of Rs 100,000—then a substantial amount. The 10-day nine-stage 1,442 km held in 1989 from Mumbai-New Delhi, it has been claimed, "still remains India's greatest, longest and toughest stage cycle."<ref>{{Cite web|last=Rodrigues|first=Mario|date=2019-11-04|title=On 30th anniversary, India's greatest cycle race remembered|url=https://sportslounge.co.in/on-30th-anniversary-indias-greatest-cycle-race-remembered/|access-date=2021-01-05|website=Sports Lounge|language=en-US}}</ref>

==Film magazine==
Later in 1975, Blitz also started a film magazine, ''[[Cine Blitz]]'', with, Karanjia's daughter Rita Mehta as its editor.<ref name=hindu/> In 1983, criminal-politicians [[Gopal Rajwani]] and [[Pappu Kalani]] executed the brutal knife murder of A V Narayan, sub-editor of Blitz.<ref>{{cite web| title = Sena leader Gopal Rajwani shot dead| publisher = Rediff| url = http://www.indiaabroad.com/news/2000/jan/25jake.htm| date = 25 January 2000| access-date = 2014-05-01| archive-url = https://archive.today/20120909161438/http://www.indiaabroad.com/news/2000/jan/25jake.htm| archive-date = 9 September 2012| url-status = dead}}</ref>

==Morning tabloid==
Karanjia founded a morning tabloid called '''''The Daily''''' for some years.<ref name=hindu/> After reaching its zenith in the 1980s sales declined in the 1990s. In 1996, Karl Mehta, then managing director and publisher, and Karanajia's son-in-law reached an agreement with the [[Daily Mirror]] to publish news from the [[Daily Mirror]], [[Sunday Mirror]], [[The Independent]] and ''People'' magazine. At the time, chairman of [[United Spirits]] [[Vijay Mallya]] owned 8% stake in Blitz.<ref>{{cite news | title = A Renewed Blitz | first=Saira | last=Menezes | url=https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/a-renewed-blitz/201454|date=29 May 1996| work=Outlook | access-date=6 October 2018 }}</ref>

==Ceases publication==
It ceased publication several years before Karanjia's death in mid-1990s, although there were some attempts to revive it. Karanjia died on 1 February 2008, on the same day he started his newspaper 67 years earlier.<ref name = "Kulkarni"/>

The Bangladesh-based tabloid with the same name is unrelated to this publication.

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

[[Category:English-language newspapers published in India]]
[[Category:Publications established in 1941]]
[[Category:Hindi-language newspapers]]
[[Category:Marathi-language newspapers]]
[[Category:Urdu-language newspapers published in India]]
[[Category:Newspapers published in Mumbai]]
[[Category:Investigative journalism]]
[[Category:Weekly newspapers published in India]]
[[Category:Defunct newspapers published in India]]
[[Category:1990s disestablishments in India]]
[[Category:Defunct weekly newspapers]]

Blitz newspaper - Revision history

UpdateBot at 20:47, 23 April 2022