NEW DELHI: Claiming the highest readership for its three Urdu publications, Sahara India Pariwar today launched its first exclusive Urdu news television channel Aalami Sahara aimed at reaching four million viewers in India and manifold eyeballs in 53 other countries.
The channel was launched at a function here this evening in the presence of a large number of dignitaries, amid a poetry recitation by Munnawar Rana from his book ‘Muhajir-nama’ and a comic presentation by stand-up comedian Raju Srivastava.
This 24X7 news channel will not only reach countries with large concentrations of Urdu speaking people including Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh but also those with large Indian diaspora like Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Brunei, Jordan, Behrain, Oman, Qatar, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, Turkey, Bhutan, Nepal, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Macau, Maldives, Fiji, Myanmar, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, Russia, Singapore, Australia and others.
Although Doordarshan and Eenadu already have Urdu channels, they telecast programmes that are not necessarily news, according to a Sahara Group source. He added that this was the first privately owned Urdu news channel in the country.
The channel Aalami Sahara will be beamed via Asiasat 3S 105.5 degree East on downlink frequency of 4020 MHz with horizontal polarization and a symbol rate of 27250 Msps.
Though group head Subrata Roy Sahara was not present, he sent a message that was telecast on the occasion. Those present included Salman Khursheed, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, Congress leader Jagdish Tytler, Delhi Minister Haroon Yusuf, veteran journalist Zafar Agha, former cricket captain Mohammad Azharuddin, and Sahara Editor Upendra Rai, apart from poet Munnawar Rana.
Rai said he had left the Sahara Group but had not been able to give it up completely and therefore returned to it. He introduced Rana and ‘Muhajir-nama’ which has been published in Devnagari by the Sahara Group.
Sahara sources claimed that a total of more than 90 million people speak Urdu in India, of which 40 million are television viewers. Aalami Sahara would voice regional, national and international issues with fairness and precision.
Sahara News Network already publishes Roznama Rashtriya Sahara (an Urdu daily), Aalami Sahara (a weekly magazine) and Bazm-e-Sahara (a monthly tabloid). Roznama publishes 16 editions from 10 centers for its 3.15 million readers. There are 5,25,000 million readers of the Urdu weekly, while there are 500,000 for Bazm-e-Sahara (Urdu monthly). Earlier, Rozanama went online in October 2010. This was the first time when a complete Urdu newspaper and magazine were made available on Internet.
Sahara News Network has one round-the-clock, free to air, national Hindi news channel ‘Samay’ and a bouquet of 36 city specific regional news channels under the brand name ‘Sahara Samay’. Sahara’s News Media is equipped with over 1600 V-Sats for News collection and has 50 Bureaus and 1000 correspondents across the globe.
