Skip to content Skip to navigation

Print helps job generation

It was a turning point in my life at the end of year 1981, when I decided to go for a change after a successful 20 years of marketing experience. The reason behind the idea was the fatigue of the long travelling experiences, the growing age and stable family life.

A small piece of advertisement in the English daily 'The Assam Tribune' on November 14, 1981, requiring sub editors for an upcoming English daily news paper attracted my attention and I did not make a second thought and applied for the same. Within a month the entire formalities were completed and out of 42 candidates, who appeared for the written test and interviews, six were selected for the job including myself.

On 16th December 1981, the team joined the third English daily newspaper published from Guwahati, 'News Star' which hit the stand on 30th January 1982. The Assam Tribune was widely circulated English Daily during that time. The second English daily Assam Express had no much impact. 'News Star' came up with high hopes based on the enthusiasm of the 'young team' and first multi-color publication in the north-eastern region.

'Young team' means all my colleagues, who joined were at least 20-22 years junior to me in age group. The print media in those days had to sustain on hard practices. We had to work under much pressure and maintain quality of the news and news paper. Resources for news collection were limited. Although the news agencies like Press Trust of India (PTI) and United News of India (UNI) were functioning well to provide national and international news, for the regional and local news we had to depend on the reports of our station wise correspondents and staff reporters.

Computers had not appeared into the region till then. Composing of the matters were to be done in different ways. We had to get our news items for inside pages through 'mono' and 'lino' machines, which were very slow. Besides, we had to get the headlines of the news composed manually. These practices are no more in existence. Proof readers had tough job in correcting the news, before the final prints were given to the layout artists for pasting on the layout sheets.

For the first and last pages we had to depend on our compositors working on the Photo-Type-Setting (PTS) machines. The PTS was different type of composing, which had to be done on computer-like machines and then prints were taken on bromide papers just like photographs. The process of corrections on the bromide paper was much more difficult. The letters for correction had to be taken afresh and then pasted making the job more difficult. The compositors and layout artists had to remain on the duty till the final layouts were handed over to machine room.

After the layouts were ready, the same were handed over to the film makers, who used to prepare films and then the plate makers used to take prints of the films on aluminum plates, before they were fitted on printing machine rollers. Rotary machines had not entered the market till then. We had to depend on the sheet-fed machine. One Sub-editor was to stay on duty during the night, as the final print orders were to be given on the machine proof only. Machine men had to complete printing of all sheets of the newspaper in time under much pressure.

Early morning, the newspaper?s circulation team had to pick up the copies for distribution among the agents and the customers. Once the copies were sent out, the work for the next day?s publication began.

Now, the things have become easy. With the introduction of computers and internet neither there is shortage of news nor the people have to wait for completing the job. By the midnight almost all the jobs are completed and the copies are distributed by circulation department of the newspapers.

Proof reading layout etc are prepared on the computers very conveniently. Because of the developing technology facilities at present more than two dozen daily newspapers in different languages are published from Guwahati itself. It has generated a large scale employment opportunities in various sections of print media. Computers, Internet, photography etc; have become the backbone of print media.

 

Author info

Daya Nath Singh's picture

Journalist; Guwahati Press Club office Secretary

Add new comment

Assamese Translator

Assam Times seeks English to Assamese translators!
Join our volunteer team.
Email editor@assamtimes.org.

Random Stories

Cabinet expansion on the cards

10 May 2015 - 5:12pm | AT News
Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi is all set to expand his cabinet very soon. Gogoi who got the seal of approval from party high command in New Delhi is expected to move the governor soon for the swearing...

DGP in Kokrajhar

6 Feb 2014 - 3:49pm | AT News
DGP Khagen Sarma is on a stock-taking visit to Kokrajhar on Thursday.Sarma held a high level meeting at the Circuit House in Kokrajhar with the BTAD’s top police officials. He further asked police...

World Environment Day observed across Assam

5 Jun 2016 - 10:11pm | Drishana Kalita
Sunday is the World Environment Day and this year’s global theme “Zero tolerance for Illegal Wildlife Trade” found resonance in events observed across Assam, to mark the day.New recruits of Assam...

Exempt agri officers from NRC

17 Sep 2016 - 8:06am | Mowsam Hazarika
An acute manpower crisis has forced the agriculture department to urge the authorities to exempt its officials from the NRC works. In a recent letter, the agriculture director has requested the...

Other Contents by Author

Gamusas and Japis are two important items in Assam, which are in much demand throughout the year in the state especially during festival seasons and social functions. These items are demanded by the people to honor the guests and honorable persons during each and every event.  However, it has been found that throughout the festival seasons the supply of locally woven gamusas are not according to demand by the customers. The reason behind it is said to be heavy cost of the locally produced items. On the other hand the weavers and traders from other parts of the country take advantage of supplying gamusas at cheaper rates and make more profit despite spending heavy cost on...
Archaeological Survey of India, Guwahati circle, has been trying to take-up the work of repairing of a broken pillar in the Mandap of Hayagriva Madhav Temple at Hajo for a long time. ASI, Guwahati has informed the media through a press note that one of the pillars of ancient temple was broken in three parts due to rusting of the iron dowels holding each other and the other developed cracks due to the same reason and widened more after the earthquake of May 2015. Hayagriva Madhav Temple is a reconstructed temple during the Koch period. The architectural parts of the earlier temple have been used for reconstruction. Different parts of the temple have been used randomly for making the pillars...
There is a generation gap between the signing of Assam Accord on the Independence Day 1985 and the present generation has to face new challenges to compete with the world class people in all spheres of development. The young people are confused over the airing of old issues which have lasted for long 31 years in absence of any solution. The issues pertaining to the Accord have become irrelevant under the present circumstances. The Assam Accord issue is still haunting and confusing the present generation due to absence of a clear picture. The fate of the Accord is not known to the people in general. A few politicians and intellectuals are trying to raise the issues of the accord from time to...
It is an established fact that a person involved in political activities cannot remain in peace till his cherished dreams are fulfilled. This can be noticed through the recent statements of former Assam chief minister, Tarun Gogoi, who has been expressing his views frequently in media against the four months old BJP-led alliance government in the state under the chief minister ship of Sarwanand Sonowal.  He (Gogoi) dares to demand a ‘white paper’ from state government about the steps taken by it to clear the encroachments of forest and other government  lands in the state and also to let the people of the state know, what action it has taken to identify and deport the foreign...
Addressing a huge gathering of residents of Udaypur, Jonakpur and Birubari at Udaypur Kali Mandir complex on Sunday, July 3, 2016, East Guwahati Assembly Member, Siddharth Bhattacharjee, emphasized the need of implementing the vision document of development as envisaged by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Speaking at the function organized by Udaypur Yuva Sangha to felicitate him on his success in the recently concluded polls to the state Assembly, he conveyed his thanks to the people of the area for showing their confidence in him. He assured the people that he would not let their confidence go in vain. The meeting was presided over by Dr Phani Borah. Senior citizen of the locality Kartik...
Hardly a few days ago, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Alliance has taken the reign of Assam administration the results of efforts made by Chief Minister, Sarbananda Sonowal under the guidance of PM Narendra Modi to bring back black money to the state coffer, has started recently with the arrest of Dhemaji Divisional Forest Officer, Mahat Chandra Talukdar by anti-corruption department. For a long time the reports of wildlife crimes were in the air, but the previous state administration ruled by Congress Party under the three-terms  leadership of Tarun Gogoi did not try to take any action. The former Chief Minister Gogoi was under a wrong impression that the people who gave him a...
A study conducted by B Boruah Cancer Institute, Guwahati, has revealed that during a decade from 2001-02 to 2011-12, cancer cases in the north-eastern part of the country have gone up from 5,404 to 8,708. A campaign, namely, Cycle 4 ride can help control this dreaded disease. In order to raise awareness to fight cancer a lady, namely, Marcellna Sangma, is going to lead a Biker Mission to 600 kms long stretch from Guwahati to Bum La Pass, near Indo-China border in Arunachal Pradesh. The ride is scheduled to be flagged off by Dr Amar Chandra Kataki, Director, B Boruah Cancer Institute, on April 21, 2016.Expressing her traumatic experience with cancer, Sangma, who was a cancer patient a decade...
Being disturbed since the first phase of polling for Assam Assembly on April 4 last, the Assam Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi is finding it difficult to remember the history of Assam agitation propelled by All Assam Students Union (AASU) since the year 1979 to the Independence Day of 1985, resulting in the Assam Accord which was signed between the Assam Government and the movement leaders in presence of erstwhile prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi. Heavy polling beyond 85 percent of the electorate in the second phase also made Gogoi to think over the majority of young and new voters were not the ‘beneficiaries of getting blankets, yarn and mosquito nets’. They are young, energetic, literate and...
Continuing campaigns for Assam Assembly elections have confused the Assam intellectuals to raise vital issues before the future state legislators and improve the quality of political atmosphere affecting the entire society for quite some time. Almost all political parties have started ‘derogatory’ comments against their rivals for attracting the electorates by their acts and objectives about which they are themselves ignorant. The main reason behind such interpretation is lack of knowledge about the real issues on which the political parties are campaigning. Assam as a state of multi-lingual and religious people continued to be disturbed since the year1979, when several organizations under...
Long awaited North East Graduate Congress, an initiative of Education Research Development Foundation (ERDF) is going to be held from February 26 to 28, 2016. This is the only graduate congress in India being organized by University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya (USTM) in association with RIST and supported by the State Bank of India (SBI). The venue of the congress is the USTM campus at 9th mile, Khanapara. Addressing the media persons in Guwahati on February 14, 2016, the USTM spokesperson informed that the three days congress is aimed to enhance all round development and bring out the capabilities of future graduates through various life skill processes to bring out  their...