Mail Today, launched last November, is a joint venture between the India Today Group and Associated Newspapers. Its coverage of stories is very similar to that of the British Daily Mail.

Mail Today's editor Bharat Bhushan and his team spent weeks in the Daily Mail's London newsroom over the summer, in order to grasp some of the intricacies of the British editorial line.

Rupert Murdoch has announced plans to launch The Wall Street Journal in India, and the Journal has already launched Mint last year, a business daily, in collaboration with HT Media.

There have also been rumors that News Corporation is planning on an Indian version of The Sun.

The International Herald Tribune actually publishes in India, through a collaboration with the Deccan Chronicle started in 2004.

“As newspaper readership stagnates in the US and Europe, India's newspapers are enjoying the kind of golden age the US saw at the end of the 19th century,” reported the Independent.

According to Timmy Kandhari, head of the entertainment and media practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Mumbai, there's going to be 12 to 15 per cent annual growth in the market – and this is a conservative outlook.

The Economist aims to triple its Indian readership from 18,000 to 50,000 by the end of 2009, and ad rates in India have risen 30 to 40% in the past six months alone.

However, it is likely that the print boom in India will slow down and that many papers recently launched will eventually have to shutter.

"What we've seen in 2007 and maybe [will in] 2008 is probably the peak of this boom. I think in 2008-09 you'll see a fair amount of consolidation. People forget that in this business you burn money very quickly," said Raju Narisetti, editor of Mint.

Source: The Independent