Ramesh Chandra Agarwal (English)

Book excerpt: The building of the no. 1 newspaper empire in India was like an architect ground plan – Ramesh Chandra Agarwal laid the foundation edition by edition, city by city, state by state, going into the den of the mightiest and slaying them without fear. That quality of never cowering was an inheritance from his father. Ramesh Chandra blended it with an unparalleled taste for risk-taking and a thirst for venturing into the unknown, throwing this molotov cocktail at his rivals who stood mocking the new entrants before it hit them. In 35 short years, he turned a modest family-owned newspaper into the prime choice of readers In 12 states with 64 editions, and built an empire with a turnover of Rs 5, 000 crore. But Ramesh Chandra Agarwal’s biggest professional achievement was to revolutionise the Hindi newspaper. Replacing the pure, undistilled Hindi of the discerning litterateur with popular, colloquial words that made an easy connect, he gave the Hindi newspaper a hitherto unknown respect – to heave its chest and play the game like a champion. This is a champion’s story.