India’s Press Faces an Online Future

By: Mark Bergen | New York Times International

Two years ago, Samir Patil surveyed his publishing floor in Mumbai, one of 10 he owned, and saw death. It was not for a lack of lively activity. His company, ACK Media, shipped roughly six million books, magazines and DVDs across India every month. In 2007, he had bought the children’s comic book Amar Chitra Katha, eventually merged it with two other titles and set lofty goals, described here, to revitalize the once popular comics industry.

But then logistics set in. “Just looking at the warehouses, the returns, the time it takes to get the money back—this just cannot continue,” he recalled. “The physical distribution system is a dead duck.”