Dinamalar at 75: How a Trivandrum Tamil Daily Became a Ten-Edition News Network

Seventy-five years, a stamp and 111 front pages Turning point

On Saturday 5 September 2026, a day before the anniversary, Vice-President C. P. Radhakrishnan released a Rs 5 India Post stamp marking the Platinum Jubilee of Dinamalar at Valluvar Kottam in Chennai. He called the paper a ‘touchstone of truth’ and singled out Pattam, its general-knowledge publication for school students. DD India listed group editor Dr. R. Ramasubbu and publishers L. Aadhimoolam, Dr. L. Ramasubbu and Jayashree among those present.

An exhibition at the venue displayed the front-page headlines and editorials of 111 issues, from the 1951 first issue to Chandrayaan-3. Its last panel, according to Dinamalar’s own report, was the May 2026 victory of actor Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam, which the paper described as ending 60 years of Dravidian-party rule. A newspaper that reported Annadurai’s DMK taking power in 1967 closed its jubilee on the next change of regime.

The founder on screen, the archive in a museum Turning point

A half-hour documentary on T. V. Ramasubbaiyer aired on Tamil Janam TV on 25 May 2026, and in June old Dinamalar issues, including speeches by Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajendra Prasad and Independence Day and Deepavali specials, were shown at an antiques exhibition at the Government Museum in Egmore. Through the year the paper ran a ‘Pavala Vizha’ (jubilee) section of jubilee greetings from readers, advertisers and ministers.

A Padma Shri for the publisher Turning point

R. Lakshmipathy, the founder’s son who joined the paper in 1956 as an advertisement executive and rose to joint managing editor, received the Padma Shri in 2025 at the age of 89. He chaired the Audit Bureau of Circulations (1986-87), the Indian Newspaper Society (1992-93) and, for three terms, the Press Trust of India.

The editor-epigraphist dies Turning point

R. Krishnamurthy, the founder’s second son and editor since 1977, died in Chennai aged 88. Trained as a geologist, he became an authority on early Tamil scripts and coins: he published Sangam Age Tamil Coins, founded the Tamilnadu Numismatic Society in 1986 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Numismatic Society in London in 1998. Tamil Wiki says he was succeeded as editor by K. Ramasubbu.

A state loses its leaders, a country lands on the Moon Turning point

The jubilee exhibition picked out the front pages for the deaths of J. Jayalalithaa (December 2016) and M. Karunanidhi (August 2018), the two leaders who had dominated Tamil Nadu since MGR, as well as the 2020 COVID lockdown and the Chandrayaan-3 landing of August 2023. By then those stories reached most readers first through Dinamalar’s website, apps, video and social accounts, with the printed paper arriving the next morning.

The newspaper becomes an app Technology

Dinamalar moved from a website to apps for Android and iPhone and an iPaper app that reproduces each printed edition. The website now carries pages for all 38 districts of Tamil Nadu plus Puducherry and Bengaluru, video under Dinamalar TV, podcasts, cinema, astrology and its signature column Tea Kadai Bench. Publishing changed from once a day to continuous: a story is posted, updated, clipped as a short video and pushed as a notification before it is printed.

The founder on a stamp Turning point

India Post issued a commemorative stamp on the birth centenary of T. V. Ramasubbaiyer, describing him as a freedom fighter, philanthropist and founder of a daily ‘whose impact on Tamil Nadu has been profound’. The same year, Dinamalar faced protests over a cartoon in its Computer Malar supplement (see Scrutiny below).

The printed page goes online: e-paper Technology

Dinamalar launched an e-paper, a page-by-page digital replica of the print edition, because, it said, many online readers still wanted the look and feel of the newspaper. A trade report at the time said the free service recorded 15,000 registrations in ten days. Dinamalar calls it the first Tamil e-paper. By its own figures it was printing about 5.82 lakh copies a day, up from about 3,000 in 1951.

Salem, the tenth edition Edition

The Salem edition completed the network of ten. It arrived during a family rift. A 2006 Madras High Court order records that Dinamalar was owned by a partnership of five partners, the founder’s sons, formed in 1961 and reconstituted in 1997; that suits between partners had been filed from 1999; and that from 1999-2000 the partners had agreed that each would look after specific editions. The masthead stayed the same across all ten.

Dinamalar goes online Technology

Dinamalar dates its website to 1999. It recruited about 40 Non-Resident Indian reporters in other countries to serve Tamils abroad, and listed Tamil associations overseas. It later sold an international edition through vending machines at airports and hotels, and offered SMS news and cricket scores. For the diaspora, a paper that once travelled by train could now be read the same morning in Singapore or Dubai.

Puducherry, Coimbatore, Vellore, Nagercoil Edition

Four editions in five years took the paper to Puducherry, the western industrial belt, the north and back to Nagercoil, the founder’s home district. Dinamalar’s own list dates Nagercoil to 1996; Tamil Wiki gives 29 March 1999. Each edition printed locally, carrying its own district pages, which became the paper’s selling point against Chennai-centric rivals.

Erode opens; the founder dies Turning point

The Erode edition launched on 16 March 1984. Four months later, on 21 July 1984, T. V. Ramasubbaiyer died. Management passed to his sons, who already ran different parts of the business: R. Krishnamurthy as editor, R. Lakshmipathy on the commercial side. The year’s other front pages included the assassination of Indira Gandhi.

Offset, colour and the Sunday magazine Technology

Dinamalar says it was the first Tamil daily to adopt offset printing and print in colour. Tamil Wiki dates offset to 1979 and computer typesetting and colour printing to 1983; a Madras Musings history gives 1981 for offset. On 4 April 1982 it launched Varamalar, a free 32-page Sunday magazine. Offset let the paper print sharper photographs, which became one of its trademarks.

Madurai Edition

The Madurai edition, Dinamalar’s fourth, gave it a southern hub between Tirunelveli and Tiruchi. Seven years later the paper’s front page would record the death of M. G. Ramachandran in December 1987.

Chennai, and a new headquarters Edition

On 29 April 1979 Dinamalar launched in Madras (now Chennai), the state capital and the largest Tamil market. The head office moved there, to Whites Road. The paper could now combine state politics from the Secretariat with district news from its regional editions.

Periyar’s script, a year before the state Technology

Under its new editor R. Krishnamurthy, Dinamalar introduced the simplified Tamil letter forms proposed by Periyar E. V. Ramasamy in its Tiruchi edition. The Tamil Nadu government adopted most of the reform in 1978-79, for Periyar’s birth centenary, and other publications followed. Dinamalar’s account says MGR’s victory in 1977 also ended a decade in which the DMK government had cut off its state advertising.

Squeezed by the state, closer to students Turning point

According to Dinamalar, the DMK government that took office in 1967 stopped state advertisements to the paper because of its coverage, a financial blow that lasted until 1977. In 1968 it began printing school final examination questions and answers as a supplement, the start of an education franchise that later included Kalvi Malar and Pattam.

Tiruchi Edition

The second edition opened in Tiruchirappalli, in the Kaveri delta. The 1960s front pages chosen for the 2026 exhibition included the anti-Hindi agitation, Annadurai’s arrest, Nehru’s death, Lal Bahadur Shastri’s short premiership and Indira Gandhi’s rise; 1969 brought Annadurai’s death and Karunanidhi’s first term as Chief Minister.

Tirunelveli, and the first teleprinter Edition

With Kanyakumari now in Madras State, Dinamalar moved its operations to Tirunelveli. Dinamalar dates this to 1957; a history in Madras Musings gives 1960. Its policy was ‘local news first’, and according to its own account Ramasubbaiyer brought Tirunelveli its first teleprinter so that national news no longer had to arrive by post or train.

Kanyakumari joins Madras State Turning point

The States Reorganisation Act moved the Tamil-majority taluks of south Travancore, Agastheeswaram, Thovalai, Kalkulam and Vilavancode, into Madras State as Kanyakumari district. Dinamalar had campaigned for it, and says it faced a government advertising ban and police pressure in Travancore-Cochin. Its 1 November 1956 issue carried greetings in verse from Bharathidasan, the Namakkal poet V. Ramalingam Pillai and Yogi Suddhananda Bharati.

Six pages for one anna Turning point

T. V. Ramasubbaiyer, who had taken over a debt-ridden press with recommendation letters from K. Kamaraj and T. S. Chokkalingam, launched Dinamalar in the Travancore-Cochin capital. The first issue had six pages and cost one anna; the lead story was the legislature passing the Zamindari Abolition Bill, and Kavimani Desigavinayagam Pillai contributed a verse blessing the ‘daily flower’. The first editorial promised to serve the people without opposing any force working for their welfare. For its first year it did not publish on Sundays.

The founder Turning point

Thazhuvia Ramasubbaiyer was born in Nanjil Nadu, then part of Travancore. A Gandhian Congressman, he worked for the depressed classes and, by Dinamalar’s account, helped open 50 schools in three months under Travancore’s 1946 compulsory-education scheme. He later campaigned for two decades for the Tirunelveli-Nagercoil-Thiruvananthapuram railway line.