About Us
WHO ARE WE?
The Pioneer group, owned and led by our editor-in-chief Late Dr Chandan Mitra (CMYK Printech Limited), has inherited a rich tradition of journalism and is carrying on the same pursuit of excellence for today's times.The Pioneer is one of the oldest national papers in the country, a heritage that we are proud to have been entrusted with and one we are synchronising with modern readership. At a time when information and knowledge are a flood on digital platforms, The Pioneer stands apart, offering views rather than news, generating diverse opinions, encouraging analysis, making sense of the noise and fostering independent thoughts and implementable solutions for the great Indian conundrum.
The newspaper (which now has eight English editions and four Hindi editions) has been the first national paper to introduce colour editions, revolutionise layouts, conceptualise a separate Sunday edition and develop its news website with live updates. Over the years, the paper diversified into other media platforms and opened a magazine and book division. Over the next five years, the group hopes to be in 25 states, tapping into the potential of Tier II cities and bringing them up to speed with the national discourse. The paper has further envisaged a digital expansion which will be more immersive and holistic about the Indian experience and connect with the global Indian. In short, The Pioneer is emerging as a thinkpad for the next quarter of the century.
The Pioneer lives up to its masthead. Throughout our years in Delhi, we have broken stories like the fodder scam, the 2G scam and found newer sub-plots in the coal scam. Apart from this there have been policy stories that have been shared with readers before anybody could. Our edit and opinion pages offer mature and reasoned insights and in the true spirit of being the fourth pillar of democracy, accommodates all shades of viewpoints and counterpoints. Our features too have been rated highly simply because they offer a deep understanding of our culture and society and is not just frivolous. They deal with news spinoffs and impacts of politics and economics. The prestigious art circuit and corporate-run theatre and galleries rate The Pioneer highly simply because it is the only paper to seriiously acknowledge the relevance of culture in our lives, be it popular or the classics. The paper is the Fashion design council of India's (FDCI) favourite. In short, there is a consistent standard across sections that is held up to this day.
All this has been possible with a dedicated senior staff, who have 15 to 20 years standing in the industry and are committed to making a paper with a difference.
HISTORY
The Pioneer was founded in Allahabad in 1865 by George Allen, an Englishman who ran a tea business but whose sharp mind ensured the newspaper exercised great influence in British India. Not only that, Sir Winston Churchill was The Pioneer's war correspondent while author Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), in his early 20s, worked at the newspaper office in Allahabad as an assistant editor from November 1887 to March 1889. The newspaper remained a primarily Lucknow-based paper until 1990, when it was purchased by the Thapar Group, under L. M. Thapar, who made it a national newspaper. Late Mr Mitra carried on the baton, not just fanning out into the heart of India but also to the east and coast. His two terms in the Rajya Sabha helped him develop an insight for a macro-oriented view of India and its place in contemporary dialogue.
WHAT IS OUR USP?
As a national mainstream newspaper, we have a very methodical and deadline-oriented approach. We have a wide resource base of established writers, ace photographers and our own team of correspondents across the country. For we believe in convincing ourselves, of experiencing things first hand before we talk to the reader. To us that is not only a priority but also a belief. You can get a quality product given the knowledge, imagination and technical capabilities of our team but what we vouch for is originality and the power of popular communication.
OUR MAGAZINES
Our first venture came to us courtesy a government tender. Darpan was the inflight magazine of Alliance Air, with exclusive focus on the Northeast, that being the biggest footprint of Alliance Air at the time. Since Indian Airlines already had its own long-standing inflight magazine, Swagat, we adopted a fresh approach of personalised stories on the ground, going to places that were never mentioned in guidebooks, savouring an experience with the thrill of a new find and thinking out of the box with evocative photos and graphics. An anecdotal, experiential, graphic style in our written and photo travelogues gave us an edge at a time of internet and TV where new information was constantly flooding our consciousness.
Such was the success of Darpan, that it began to be circulated on the erstwhile Indian Airlines along with Swagat. And it was because of its success and many special editions that we got to produce Namaskaar, the inflight magazine of Air India. Yes we redefined inflight reading, so much so that we were chosen to bring out Rail Bandhu, India's first onboard magazine for premier trains across the country - Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto.
Our ongoing projects are The DIALogue, the airport magazine for the GMR group across terminals 1, 2 and 3 in Delhi along with Exotica, the travel and wellness magazine that is currently available in all hotel rooms and lounges of four major hotel chains countrywide - the ITC group, Taj Vivanta and Gateway hotels, the Intercontinental Lalit and Hyatt Regency.
OUR COFFEE TABLE BOOKS
Our first coffee table book was for Thapar University.
The Edge of 50, focussing on top 50 entrepreneurs of Delhi, in collaboration with Invest Care Pvt Ltd.
In Search of Solace for Arunachal Pradesh Tourism.
The Eight-Fold Path for the Drukpa sect of trans-Himalayan Buddhism
The Longest Road for Uttar Pradesh government on the Agra-Lucknow expressway
UP: The Growth Factory for the Uttar Pradesh government
The Great Himalayan Railway on the USBRL project with Ministry of Railways