The office of the Registrar of Newspapers for India (RNI) came into being on 1 July 1956, on the recommendation of first Press Commission in 1953 and by amending the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867. The Registrar of Newspapers for India, commonly known as Press Registrar, was required, inter alia to submit an Annual report to the Government by 31 December every year on the status of newspapers. The period for which an annual report was to be submitted, was changed from calendar year to financial year in 2002. As on 31 March 2009, the total number of registered newspaper/periodical was 73,146. These were 8,475 dailies, 383 bi/tri-weeklies, 9,458 fortnightlies, 22,124 monthlies, 4,864 quarterlies, 653 annuals, and 2,645 of other periodicity. These figures were for the year 2008-09.
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Newspaper periodicals were published in English and 21 main languages listed in Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India
. Newspapers/periodicals were also published in 127 other languages including dialects and few foreign languages. Odisha has the distinction of publishing newspapers/periodicals in 21 major languages. Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra came next with 14, 13 and 11 major languages.
Out of the 73,146 newspapers/periodicals registered as on 31 March 2009, only 11,752 submitted their Annual Statements during 2008-09. The total circulation of these 11,752 newspapers/periodicals were 25,79,53,373 copies per publishing day. The largest numbers of newspapers/periodicals registered in any Indian language is in Hindi (29,094). The second largest number of Newspapers/periodicals registered in any language is in English (10,530). The state with the largest number of newspapers/periodicals is Uttar Pradesh with 11,543. The state with the second largest number of newspapers/periodicals is Delhi with 9,961.