Swaminathan sadanand

1. Swaminathan
Sadanand

2. Who is he?
Founder of Free Press Agency (FPA).
Founder and Managing Editor of
Free Press Journal.
 (FPJ)Founder of Dinamani- A Tamil
daily broadsheet

3. InitialDay’s
• Acclaimed national journalist, S.
Sadanand was eldest son of the late Mr.
C. V. Swaminathan Aiyar, Editor of the
well-known former Tamil Weekly
Vivekachintamani.
• Educated in Madras City and entered
journalism in 1917.He was in the thick
of politics right from the start of his
career, was a signatory to the pledge
against the Rowlatt Act

4. Continued.
• As Publicity Officer for the Indian
National Congress for a while, he
looked after Khadi and Village
Industries
• After working in Reuter's in 1920,
he later became Assistant Editor of
The Independent, Allahabad. Then
migrated to Rangoon Times.His
desire to start his own news
agency was born during this time.

5. Free Press Agency (FPA)/FreePress News
Service
• In a bid to counter the pro-British
propaganda of Reuters and Associated
Press, the only news agencies working in
India those days, Sadanand started his
Free Press News Service in 1927.
• He said that, public opinion was moulded
entirely by news supplied on day to day
basis and it was “difficult if not
impossible to mould healthy public
opinion owing to the monopoly held in
the supply of news by subsidised news
agencies.”

6. Free Press Journal (FPJ)
• After FPA faced strict censorship,
Sadanand started the Free Press
Journal as a morning daily newspaper
in June 1930 from Bombay.
• Important FPA scoops include the
Chittagong armoury raid case Feb 1933
(K Rama Rao)Sadanand took over the
Indian Express in 1932 from Dr. P.
Varadarajulu Naidu and conducted it as
a newspaper of the Free Press Journal
group.

7. FPJ Contd
• In 1935 his newspaper’s securities were
confiscated, Sadanand had to close
down his agency. His newspaper
continued.
• On a number of occasions, monetary
securities were demanded of him
making him forfeit more than Rs.
50,000.
• Penalty had to be paid for his editorial
entitled ‘ Swaraj is the only remedy’ in
FPJ and for publishing extracts of an
article by Gandhi.

8. S Sadanand covered the
Second Round Table
Conference in London in
1931 attended by Mahatma
Gandhi, and also the Third
Round Table Conference in
1933.

9. He died in the year 1950 at St.
Isabel's Hospital and Nursing
Home, Mylapore.
Sadanand was a fearless journalist
freedom fighter.
The spirit with which he launched
the paper and ran it for almost
three decades helped make it an
integral part of two great Indian
movements: the struggle for
independence and the evolution of
Indian publishing.

10. By :SYEDSALMAN