Amazed by Jagran’s Printing Press
Today we went to Dainik Jagran Office in Jammu. I was fascinated to be on the ground as we were already locked up for 2 years in our homes. My friends and I were taken to the fantastic office of Dainik Jagran. Along with us our Regional Director of IIMC Jammu Dr Rakesh Goswami sir and Assistant Professor Dr Sanjit Khajuria sir also went there.
Packed into two vehicles, one led by Balbir Bhaiya and another driven by Sanjit Sir in which I was present, we started the journey. There was excitement and thrill. We also took a DSLR camera with us, just to find later it was discharged. Dainik Jagran Jammu Office is on the Bari Brahmana Industrial Area Estate road. It is around 6 km from our institute.
At the destination, we were welcomed by Rohit Jandial Sir, a Principal Correspondent at Dainik Jagran. Then we were headed towards the editorial room where the Editor takes a meeting at 10 am every day. All of us gave our introduction. There we had a guiding session as to what is happening on the field with Anil Gakhad sir and Naveen Sir. Naveen Nawaz Sharma sir who is bureau head of Kashmir office of paper told us about his experiences there. Now though he has been shifted here due to security reasons, he is still very much about Kashmir. He told about various terrorist activities that take place in the valley. In an interesting case, he portrayed an account of a young terrorist who was seen by nobody but many people believed him to be a demigod. That poor demigod had not much wrongdoing but the media played an important role in increasing his popularity. Following some more discussion, snacks were served.
Thereafter we went to the output department. Basically, in a newspaper organization, there are three teams — The input team that consists of reporters and stringers, the Output team that design the newspaper and the Print team that prints the Newspaper. Output Department was empty at that time since all the work there starts after 5 pm, i.e., after the input team files its stories. The area had around 10 computers. Anil Gakhadh sir showed us the blueprint of the newspaper. He told us about the content management system that Jagran media house is using. It is centered in Jagran Headquarters in Kanpur. Dainik Jagran has also invented a special font for itself.
The print area was the best of all. The print department is set up at ₹200 crores. Machines there are very costly and some of them are imported from Japan. To print a newspaper there are plates required. A newspaper has ink type of CMYK. Therefore four separate plates of each colour are engraved with the newspaper content. Then in the second machine, they are punched at a specific area, so that in the big machine they can be aligned. A mistake in aligned causes the text to have a shadow, therefore a specially imported machine is used for that. After the plates are made, they are fitted in the big machine(blue). Rolls of Russian made paper are put in and finally, the newspaper gets printed. A set of four plates CMYK are required to print one 16 column side. And each set can print about 1 lac copies.
Thereafter we took photos before the machines followed by a crazy selfie. I was so intrigued by the giant that I climbed on it to get a good view.
Then at the Dainik Jagran gate, we clicked some more photos to remember the trip in crystal clear format. It was a good experience.
The trip came to an end. It was adventurous.
