26 glorious years of Zee News: From Kandahar till today

As India's first private broadcaster, Zee News has brought news from all over the world to the drawing rooms of citizens.

New Delhi: Zee News completed 26 years of stellar journalism this week. As India's first private broadcaster, the TV channel has brought news from all over the world to the drawing rooms of citizens.

The channel continues to be the most favoured news channel in the country. From the Kandahar airplane hijack till today, the channel has covered each and every significant event with utmost sincerity.

Before Zee News, the role of news dissemination was limited to the public broadcaster Doordarshan and All India Radio.

Zee News changed the way people consumed news as it went beyond the usual practice of toeing the line of the ruling party.

Zee News Editor-in-Chief Sudhir Chaudhary on Monday took the viewers down memory lane, recalling the inception and progress of the channel over the last 26 years. As he spoke, #ZeeNewsForever became the top trend on Twitter.

They say that the older the relationships get, the stronger they become. This is true for the relationship between the audience and Zee News.

Today's generation will not even remember how old their family's relationship with Zee News is. In March 1995, we gave the first private news bulletin to India. It was broadcast every night at ten o'clock on Zee TV at that time.

Gradually, the 30-minute news bulletins turned into a 24-hour news channel. 

Today we want to show you some memorable excerpts from the news bulletins broadcast in the last 26 years.

Witness history as Zee News completes 26 years! India's first private news broadcaster.@sudhirchaudhary#ZeeNewsForever pic.twitter.com/7t0P47iyEK — Zee News English (@ZeeNewsEnglish) March 15, 2021

In the era of change, Zee News not only changed itself but also sent the message to the world that true journalism is that which is dedicated to the country. That the change is continuous as we kept bringing news in new colours, new forms, new technology and new formats. The channel started its operation in the year 1995. 

On the night of July 2, Congress leader Sushil Sharma in Delhi murdered Naina Sahni and burnt her body in an oven. Through Zee News, the nation saw this news on television. Naina Sahni's case went from the lower court to the Supreme Court and Sushil Sharma was sentenced to death by the sessions court and the High Court. The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court. However, in 2018, the Delhi High Court ordered the release of Sushil Sharma as he had spent 23 years in jail.

I still remember the evening of November 12, 1996, when I used to report for the channel. I had returned to the office after a day's reporting and suddenly the news of two planes crashing into the sky near Charkhi Dadri was broken by news agency PTI.

I immediately left for Charkhi-Dadri, about 100 km from Delhi. The memory of the terrible incident is still fresh in my memory. It was the biggest accident of that year in which 349 people were killed. At that time, people saw the coverage of this event only on Zee News.

Now we want to remind you of that era when there was no independent journalism in the country. It was the era of 'godi' media when the traditional media toed the line of the ruling government.

Even at that time, the major personalities who came to our platform were asked questions fearlessly.

Today, whenever you see the picture of terrorist Masood Azhar hiding in Pakistan, you should remember the Kandahar plane hijack. On 24 December 1999, the Indian Airlines Flight from Kathmandu to Delhi, IC-814 was hijacked by the terrorists. Zee News then reported this hijack.

This was the first time that Zee News showed round the clock live coverage of the event on television.

There have been countless iconic events that Zee News has covered including Kargil War and the 1999 Lok Sabha Elections among others.