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Outlet profile

The Statesman

Indian English-language daily, centrist-liberal

Owned byThe Statesman Ltd, a privately held company headquartered at Statesman House in Kolkata. Ravindra Kumar has long served as its editor and managing director. I could not confirm the exact shareholding structure from the sources I found.
FundingMainly advertising and print and digital subscriptions. There is no known state or billionaire backing. Like most Indian dailies it depends heavily on advertising, including government advertising.
On the administrationmostly neutral

Background

The Statesman traces its roots to the Friend of India, a paper begun by Baptist missionary William Carey in Serampore. Robert Knight launched The Indian Statesman in Calcutta in 1875 with merchant backing and bought the Friend of India, and the two merged in 1883. The Knight family owned it until 1927, when Sir David Yule acquired it, and British owners ran it until the mid-1960s, when it passed to Indian ownership. It is published from Kolkata, New Delhi, Siliguri and Bhubaneswar. It has a reputation for resisting government pressure; it is credited with opposing the 1975-77 Emergency. In February 2009, editor Ravindra Kumar was arrested for 'hurting religious feelings' after the paper reprinted an article on religion that some Muslims found insulting to the Prophet Muhammad. He was later released on bail, and the paper described the reprint as an error of judgement. Reference sources list its political alignment as 'Liberal'. In 2026 it carries a mix of wire copy, national government news and West Bengal political coverage, including in-depth reporting of the BJP's Bengal leaders. Because the name is shared by several other papers, such as the Austin American-Statesman, this profile covers the Indian paper.

Sources

  1. The Statesman (India) - Wikipedia
  2. About The Statesman
  3. What the Statesman's 2009 'error of judgement' says about Indian media's free speech tightrope - Newslaundry
  4. Ravindra Kumar, Editor & MD, The Statesman - Exchange4media

Profile compiled 2026-10-08; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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