On 15 March, IE will be entering its 43rd year. The journey through these four decades plus three has been exciting and fruitful. IE chartered its own course to evolve as a purposive economic journal.

In 1968 when we launched the paper, the economy was in a bad shape. It was just recovering from two successive years of drought that demanded massive imports of foodgrains. The country suffered an acute foreign exchange crisis, a steep devaluation of the rupee and saw a new leader, Indira Gandhi, struggling to find her feet. All these compelled declaring a holiday for planning over five years. But we perceived hope and considered the timing propitious: it marked the break of the green revolution, the resumption of long term planning with hopes for catching up for time lost.

42 years hence, India has emerged a large global economy with the strength not merely to meet her own massive growing needs but also to go to the succour of less developed nations. In several sectors like telecom, automobiles and IT, there has been spectacular growth. The best proof of this strength is her resilience to bounce back to high growth within two years of getting hit by an unprecedented global recession.

In line with the expansion of the economy and literacy, the print medium has also been registering handsome growth. But there are several unsavoury developments that impinge severely on the integrity and effectiveness of this medium. From the modest dependence in the 1960s, today the medium is heavily relies on advertisements with large newspapers building circulation through throw away cover prices that don't even cover a fraction of the production expenses. Large number of copies of leading English dailies are dumped at airports and seminar halls free. Income from copy sales has fallen to a less than 10 per cent of total sales. This inevitably means massive dependence on advertisements – from the government, private corporates and other large institutions. The humungous expenditure incurred on elections have also resulted in editorial space being bought. One who pays the piper calls the tunes. The essential role of the fourth estate as a guardian of democracy and fair-play seems considerably eroded.

The powerful medium of television and, more recently of the internet, are also posing intense competition to the print medium, with instant coverage of news, visually pleasing and in detail. With the enormous resources invested in technology and in news gathering, the television medium has emerged a powerful competitor to the print medium.

Conscious of these mighty challenges, IE has changed its focus from news with which it started four decades ago to research and analysis. It has been expanding its specialist equip-ment not just to analyse events as they occurred but to look at new and emerging issues. Through last year, we presented several such: on Chennai emerging the healthcare capital of India, on the Capitation Kamadhenu, on the south getting a fair share of KG basin gas, on the pulses crisis and on efforts needed to make India a food bowl of the world...

Small was once considered beautiful. Fritz Schumacher so passionately held on to this; but with the growth in the size of the economy and of the corporates, this no longer holds good. Look at the priority extended to the small scale sector in terms of bank credit at rates of interest that were lower than those levied for medium and large businesses: with the liberalisation of the financial sector, this had been reversed. Today large businesses can access credit at rates much less than the prime lending rate of banks. But in the absence of facile rating systems, the small sector pays interest at PLR plus 4 per cent! Likewise small papers could access a portion of the ad budgets of large corporations and governments as a measure of support for their independent work; but large advertisers including the DAVP and the LIC have moved away from this practice. The sheer size and power of the large advertisers appear intimidating even for the large players of the media. Precisely in this milieu, small newspapers, not unduly dependant on large revenues through advertisements, continue to be critical of the several unsavoury practices indulged in by the state or a corporation. IE has been doing this for 42 years and will strive to maintain this independence.

We will continue to focus on emerging issues and expand their scope and content. While thanking you for your support that helped us survive (it was no easy task, the economic journals that existed when we commenced publication - Capital, Eastern Economist, Commerce - had ceased publication), we seek your continued support to sharpen our focus and make our mission more purposive. We invite your suggestions in this regard.