Dinakaran is a Tamil

Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...

 daily newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

 distributed in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. , Dinakaran is the largest Tamil daily newspaper in terms of net paid circulation, which was 1,235,220. In terms of total readership, which was 16,741,000 , it is the second largest.
Dinakaran is published from 12 centres in India namely Delhi

Delhi

Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...

, Mumbai

Mumbai

Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...

, Chennai

Chennai

Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...

, Bangaluru, Madurai

Madurai

Madurai is the third largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It served as the capital city of the Pandyan Kingdom. It is the administrative headquarters of Madurai District and is famous for its temples built by Pandyan and...

, Coimbatore

Coimbatore

Coimbatore , also known as Kovai , is the second largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is a major commercial centre in Tamil Nadu and is known as the "Manchester of South India"....

, Trichy, Salem, Nagercoil

Nagercoil

Nagercoil is the 12th largest city in the southernmost Indian state of Tamil Nadu and a municipality and administrative headquarters of Kanyakumari District...

, Vellore

Vellore

Vellore It is considered one of the oldest cities in South India and lies on the banks of the Palar river on the site of Vellore Fort. The city lies between Chennai and Bangalore and the Temple towns of Thiruvannamalai and Tirupati...

, Nellai and Pondicherry.

History

Dinakaran was founded in 1977 by K. P. Kandasamy

K. P. Kandasamy

K. P. Kandasamy was a politician from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and founder of Dinakaran, a Tamil daily newspaper. He founded Dinakaran in support of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam when his father-in-law, S. P. Adithanar, chose to support Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam during its split from DMK...

 in support of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam is a state political party in the states of Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry, India. It is a Dravidian party founded by C. N. Annadurai as a breakaway faction from the Dravidar Kazhagam headed by Periyar...

 (DMK) when his father-in-law, S. P. Adithanar

S. P. Adithanar

Si. Balasubramania Adithan a.K.a Si. Ba. Adithan , popularly called as Adithanar, was a Tamil lawyer, politician, minister and founder of the Tamil daily newspaper Dina Thanthi. He was the founder of the We Tamils party and served as the member of the Madras Legislative Council for two terms...

, chose to support Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam during its split from DMK. In 2005, Dinakaran was acquired from his son K. P. K. Kumaran

K. P. K. Kumaran

K. P. K. Kumaran , a politician from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party, is a former member of the Parliament of India who represented Tamil Nadu in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament. He is the son of K. P. Kandasamy and grandson of S. P. Adithanar.-External links:*...

 by Kalanithi Maran's Sun Network

Sun Network

Sun TV Network is an Indian media company based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, part of Kal Media Services, Sun Group. It has been named as Asia's most profitable media corporations and the largest TV network. Established on April 14, 1993, it created and owns a variety of television channels and...

.

Controversy

In 2006 May, Dinakaran ran into a controversy when it published the results of a series of opinion polls which showed politician M. K. Stalin having more approval than his elder brother M. K. Azhagiri

M. K. Azhagiri

Muthuvel Karunanidhi Azhagiri , generally known as M. K. Alagiri, is an Indian politician and a Cabinet Minister. He is the second son of the head of Dravida Munnetra Kazagham, M. Karunanidhi. His mother, Mrs. Dayaalu Ammal, is the second wife of M. Karunanidhi...

. The Madurai

Madurai

Madurai is the third largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It served as the capital city of the Pandyan Kingdom. It is the administrative headquarters of Madurai District and is famous for its temples built by Pandyan and...

 office of Dinakaran was fire bombed and three employees were killed. This led to the resignation of Central Minister Dayanidhi Maran

Dayanidhi Maran

Dayanidhi Maran is a member of parliament in India’s 15th Lok Sabha from Chennai Central constituency and Additional Deputy Leader of DMK. He was also the Minister for Textiles in the Union Cabinet, and has also served as the as the Minister for Communications and Information Technology before that...

, brother of Kalanidhi Maran from the Union Cabinet.