UNI celebrates 47th anniversary of commencement of operations

New Delhi, Mar 21 (UNI) United News of India (UNI) celebrated the 47th anniversary of commencement of its operations today.

The main function was held at the News Agency's Headquarters here.

The contribution of 39 employees, who had completed 25 years of service in the organisation, was lauded on the occasion. While 15 of those employees are currently posted at the Head Office, others are at stations outside Delhi.

UNI General Manager M K Laul encapsulated the agency's existence as 'eventful and glorious' and outlined the roadmap for the future.

Mr Sonny Abraham, Editor, UNI, Mr Neeraj Bajpai, Joint Editor, UNI, Mr Ashok Sharma, Editor, UNIVARTA, and Sheikh Manzoor Ahmed, Editor, UNI Urdu Service, also felicitated the employees and shared their views on the agency's future.

Similar functions were held at other offices of the agency across the country to mark the occasion.

Those who completed 25 years of service this year are: M K Laul, Ashok Sharma, Arun Kumar Kesari, Ashok Tuteja, Subhash C Nigam, Naresh Kumar Singh, Raj Kumar Mishra, Shiv Charan Sharma, Ashok Kumar Singh, Abhijit K Chatterjee, Manohar Lal Verma, Virender Verma, Manoranjan Das, Lakhmi Chand and Jai Prakash Rana (all from Delhi); Manik Ranjan Dhar (Agartala); H V Jagadeesha (Bangalore); Ajay Kumar Gupta, Devendra K Sharma, Sharad Kumar Deshmukh, Harigiri Goswami, Mahendra Kumar Pandey and S N Dixit (all from Bhopal); K Tulsidharan (Chennai), O A Andrews (Kochi), N S Chauhan and Subhash Chander (both Jammu); A Raghavan (Kozhikode); Surendra Dubey, S K Tripathi, Prem Chandra Verma and Harak Singh Bhandari (all Lucknow); Madhavachar (Mangalore); Y Bala Murali Krishna (Panaji); Krishna Narayan Patel (Pune); B Kanniappan (Puducherry), Radhey Shyam Ray (Ranchi), Jitendra Prasad Singh (Raipur) and M Vinoth Kumar (Thiruvananthapuram).

Major UNI milestones after commencement of its operations in 1961 include launching of its Hindi Service, UNIVARTA, in 1982, commencement of computerisation in 1985, launching UNI Scan and UNI Photo Service in 1987, UNI Graphics Service in 1991, UNI Urdu Service in 1992, its website in English (http:/uniindia.com) and Hindi (http://www.univarta.com) in 2002, completion of computerisation of branch network in 2002 and adoption of satellite technology for gathering and distribution of news in 2003.

With many firsts to its credit, UNI today offers its entire spectrum of service on the internet or through VSAT to any subscriber anywhere in the world. UNI Urdu Service, the only one of its kind in the world, is also available to subscribers now on VSAT.

One of Asia's largest news agencies, UNI a multilingual, multi- media news company, was registered by a group of leading Indian newspapers in December 1959.

During its long existence, UNI has scaled enviable heights of popularity among its client subscribers and the reading public by providing a news service that is recognised as competitive, vibrant and innovative, fulfilling the objectives of its promoter share holders.

The agency has humble origins when it started its operations on March 21,1961 in a single room office at New Delhi with five staff members, its first reports being hand delivered to subscribers in the city.

UNI AT RP GC1739