Ghazanfar Abbas, IndiaTomorrow.net,
New Delhi, Aug 15: Former Vice President of India Mohammad Hamid Ansari on Tuesday launched the Urdu edition (thewireurdu.com) of The Wire news website at Constitution Club of India.
Under the leadership of Siddharth Varadarajan, former editor of The Hindu, The Wire was launched in May 2015 as an independent, not-for-profit website for news and analysis. In less than two and half years, it has established its respectable position among the Indian media.
In February this year, The Wire had launched its Hindi edition (thewirehindi.com).
Eminent journalist-activist Mahtab Alam will be editor of Urdu Wire.
The wire is run by not-for-profit company Foundation for Independent Journalism with donations from public.
Speaking on the occasion, Varadarajan said: “The journey of The Wire started in 2015. We wanted to open a platform of journalism which connects people and media. We got immense support from excellent writers, photographers. We always wanted to open The Wire in various languages along with English. So, we started The Wire Hindi and proved that even with a small team and in a short span, we can connect with people.”
“Some people asked why Urdu. If we look at the history of journalism, we find a great role of Urdu journalism since freedom struggle. But Urdu has lost its charm as we felt. Urdu must flourish, so we decided to launch The Wire Urdu,” he said.
Besides Hamid Ansari, dignitaries who featured the launch included: Sayeeda Hamid, Saeed Naqvi, Prof Prabhat Patnayak, Actress Sharmila Tagore, Vrinda Grover, Navaid Hamid, SQR Ilyas, Vinod Dua, Ravish Kumar, Farha Naqvi, Prof Apoorvanand, John Dayal, Ali Anwar Ansari, Jagdeep Chokkar and Gauhar Raza.
