12 Kolkata: Over 30 journalism students from different institutes, including schools, observed Indian Newspaper Day at Press Club on Wednesday and paid tribute to James Augustus Hicky, an Irishman who launched Asia's first printed newspaper — Hicky's Bengal Gazette — in Kolkata in 1780. The celebration focused on the freedom of the press.
Hicky, deemed the father of Indian journalism, started a shipping business in Kolkata but ran into debt and was imprisoned. In jail, he acquired a printing business and started the paper. But he drew the ire of Warren Hastings, then governor general. As a result, his printing machinery was confiscated, and the paper's publication ceased in 1782.
Former sheriff of Kolkata and veteran journalist Utpal Chatterjee told students that Hicky, who died on a China-bound ship and whose body was thrown into the sea, paved the way for courage and freedom of journalism about 245 years ago. "Be a conscientious journalist," hatterjee told his young audience.
Swastik Mukherjee, a student of Scottish Church Collegiate School, said, "Today I got to know the legacy of Hicky."