An Indian Newspaper Thinks 'Positive'

Positive +, a free bilingual newspaper brought out on a laptop from Asma Naseer’s living room is India’s first newspaper on HIV/AIDS. The paper’s commitment to building up a friendship with the reader and its innovative design have made it popular in and around Chennai where it already faces a demand for more copies than the 5000 it can afford to print, reports Papri Sri Raman of Inforchange Media.

Maragatham, 35, is a daily passenger on the train to Chennai, which stops at Karur, a textile town, 430 kilometres south of the metropolis. She trades in readymade garments. Every 15 days, she waits eagerly for a newspaper distributed free on the trains she boards to get to Karur. 

On the Karur-Tiruchirapally lap, the trains are crammed every day with people coming to work in the big cities. For Maragatham, the eight-page colour newspaper, Positive +, is interesting because for the first time she is able to read openly about HIV/AIDS in her own language. "I learn new things about this dreaded disease with every issue," she says. After Maragatham has read the paper, she makes sure that she hands it over to someone else, even students of a college in Erode, who commute regularly on this train. 

But, why would anyone want to start a newspaper in a country that has almost 62,500 registered newspapers, of which about 2,130 are dailies? Furthermore, a newspaper in the age of Internet newspapers and recession, that deals with just one subject and which is distributed free of charge seems a losing proposition. 

So what made Asma Naseer, the person behind the great idea, take the plunge? "Well," she says, "we had been thinking about doing it for several years, but never really put our minds to it. Now it has at last happened." 

Four months into operations - the first edition was out on December 1, 2008 - it takes about Rs 50,000 (US$1=Rs 50) to print and distribute each edition of Positive +, as the advertisements are few. But money has been trickling in. The Tamil Nadu Aids Control Society has taken advertisement space for six months, which is worth about Rs 12,000 per edition, while some shopkeepers and well-wishers are now coming forward with small advertisements. Several generous friends have also contributed, which includes an initial private gift of $1000 that enabled the project to take off. "The very fact that four months into the experiment, we are facing demands of up to 50,000 copies, which we are unable to print at the moment, shows that people find the paper useful," says Asma, who is in her thirties. It will need at least Rs 400,000 every month to print and distribute 50,000 copies door-to-door even in the small area it now covers. That is Asma's dream. 

Currently, 5,000 copies of the publication roll out of a small press to be distributed free in areas like Adayar, Besant Nagar and Thiruvanmiyur in Chennai by volunteers or newspaper boys for a token sum. Three hundred more copies are given out on trains in the Karur-Trichy section, mostly among vendors and daily wage earners. There is also a free online version at http://positivecommunications.org/  

But what's so special about this newspaper, one might ask. Well, besides the kudos due to a single woman's effort, it is the manner in which HIV/AIDS is treated that is striking. What immediately impresses people as they turn the pages is the commitment it displays to building up a friendship with the reader. And it is bilingual. In fact, the newspaper design is quite innovative. Both Tamil as well as English material appear on the same broadsheet, which is then folded into tabloid size, with every reader getting access to both languages in a single copy. 

True, Positive + offers no competition to the 20-odd English and Tamil newspapers published from Chennai. The newsprint is grainy - it is composed and designed on a tiny laptop on a dinner table. But one cannot miss the bonhomie it exudes, issue after issue. And yes, with Tamil Nadu considered an HIV/AIDS hotspot, it is only appropriate that Chennai should be home to India's first newspaper on HIV/AIDS. 

Read the full report here.