Indian American Newspapers Compete in Houston

October 1, 2007

In fact, there are three Indian American newspapers based in Houston, along with other smaller magazines. The crazy, yet typical, thing is that the guys who run the three competing newspapers all used to work together. K.L. Sindwani started the first paper back in 1982 – today it is called the Indo-American News.

By 1986, Sindwani had taken on three partners, hired a managing editor and turned his monthly paper into a weekly. The paper also published a 150-page directory of local and Texas-based South Asian businesses.
Partner Koshy Thomas, originally from Kerala, India, left the paper shortly after to start his own because, he said, he thought he deserved a bigger share of the profits.
Today, Thomas' paper, Voice of Asia, prints 15,000 to 20,000 copies a week, he said. And last year, Thomas, 73, launched the Asian Business Journal to cover the entire Asian business community in Houston, including Chinese, Vietnamese and other east or southeast Asian businesses.
Nine years after Thomas left, Rajeev Gadgil left his post as managing editor of Indo-American News and joined a friend to publish the India Herald.
“We thought we could do on our own what we were doing for others," said Gadgil, 56, who is originally from Hyderabad, India.
"Ten or 15 years ago, it seemed like there would be no future for a newspaper, but with this influx in immigration, the market remains pretty strong for the desi media."
The India Herald distributes about 2,000 copies a week.

The inability of first-generation Indian men (and women) to work together was something I observed from my childhood when any and all Indian community groups would self-destruct after a few years, only for a new group to pop up. Then there would be the “Bengali Association of Greater [Insert Metropolitan Area here],” the “[Greater Metropolitan Area] Bengali Group, and “Bengali Americans of [Greater Metropolitan Area.]” When I moved to the Bay Area, there were three separate Indian Independence Day celebrations because of in-fighting.

Anyway, I think this article hits on the trend we reported on in the Transit Issue about the growth of South Asian media: “Desi Media’s Next Generation." We spoke to the folks over at Ego Magazine, who aren’t doing things a bit differently than the guys in Houston.

Speaking of desi media, I just got an email from these guys today. I’m not sure what exactly they mean by “progressive Indian American lifestyle,” but that’s not the feel the magazine has to me. Maybe “progressive” is a synonym for “wealthy?”

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another interesting story from the chronicle about desis waning love for gold herehttp://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:QarIq3idHh4J:chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/5137163.html