Sainik Samachar turns 100

Sainik Samachar, the journal of the Indian armed forces, will celebrate its centenary on Friday with the launch a coffee table book, Soldering On, which chronicles the history of the defence forces over the past 100 years. The book will be released by Defence Minister A K Antony.

The coffee table book, being brought out by the Directorate of Public Relations, is a compilation of articles published in the magazine in the last 100 years on the defining moments of the nation. The book will contain rare pictures taken by the Photo Division, under the Ministry, which have never been published in the past.

The journal started its journey as a 16-page Urdu weekly on January 2, 1909, to provide Army personnel “a summary of news with a military bias”. The English edition made its debut in 1923 and the publication reached its peak during World War II when an overseas edition was brought out from Cairo for the benefit of Indian troops deployed in far-off theatres and its circulation touched three lakh copies. The magazine turned into a fortnightly in 1954 and was rechristened as Sainik Samachar. It is now brought out in 13 different Indian languages, including English.