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These Desi media outlets keep our community connected
From India Abroad to Khasokhas, ethnic media outlets have always been an important part of the South Asian migrant community.
Tehsin Pala
February 18, 2025
Illustration by Tehsin Pala
For nearly five decades, India Abroad wasn’t just a newspaper, it was a lifeline. Tucked under grocery bags at Patel Brothers or passed around after Sunday temple, it connected South Asian immigrants to home and to each other.
When it shut down in 2020, it was the end of an era, but diaspora media in the tristate area didn’t die with it. From newsletters, radio stations and hyperlocal digital outlets, a new generation is redefining how South Asians get their news, filling gaps mainstream media still ignores.
In the tristate area, 74 media outlets serve the South Asian diaspora, with 17 based in New Jersey alone, according to the AAPI Media Directory by the Asian Media Initiative at the Center for Community Media at CUNY. The oldest operational newspaper in the area, News India Times, started in 1975 and runs out of the Desi hub of the Garden State, Edison.
These outlets cover a wide spectrum of communities, with 52 publishing in languages beyond English, like Urdu, Bangla, Nepali, and Tamil, to name a few. Some cater to niche audiences, like Brown Girl Magazine in Long Island City, which focuses on South Asian women and girls, or NRI Today in Queens, which reports on Indian business professionals abroad.
As these outlets continue to evolve, they’re also fighting to stay afloat in an era of declining print media and financial uncertainty. Khasokhas, a local Nepali-language publication in Queens, recently celebrated its 13th anniversary, but it also found itself at the crossroads of a much larger conversation: What is the future of ethnic media in a rapidly changing landscape?
Celebrating Khasokhas
On Jan. 15, a chilly Wednesday in Queens, journalists and Desi community members gathered to celebrate Khasokhas’s anniversary. The event included a panel where renowned faces of the tristate media scene were present, including Michelle Watson, national news editor at CNN, Nick Hirshon, president of the Deadline Club, Sree Sreenivasan, president of the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA) and Jehangir Khattak, director of communications at The Center for Community Media.
The community is my family, and I work for them.
Representing Central Desi, I joined the discussion on the challenges of keeping local journalism alive. Despite financial struggles, publications like Khasokhas, which recently won a $100,000 Press Forward Grant, continue to fight for survival, proving that community-driven news will always matter.
“It was a time when Trump got elected, and we had so many questions,” said Deepti Pradhan of Queens Diamond and Jewelry, commenting on when she first encountered Khasokhas. “I was just a kid in Nepal but as an aspiring international student. I would still follow Khasokhas to get updates.”
Once again, Khasokhas finds itself in that role. Many community members rely on local papers to understand how a new presidency might affect them — in their own language.
“They're really, really worried. Beyond the undocumented people, even those who are citizens are worried,” said Suresh Shahi, editor of Khasokhas. The newsroom has received an influx of reader questions on what to do if immigration officers knock on their door or how to navigate Trump’s executive orders, including the controversial push to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented parents.
Shahi, a former radio presenter in Nepal, joined his friend Kishor Panthi in launching Khasokhas in 2012, as the editor of the weekly Queens newspaper. Despite the challenges over the years, Shahi remains committed to local media.
“It has a different level of satisfaction. The community is my family, and I work for them,” he said.
Their website now sees 250,000 visitors monthly, and their YouTube channel has over 14,000 subscribers.
As I grew older, I started to think more about why [my parents] subscribed to India Abroad along with Time Magazine. I began to realize that this was a publication specific to their needs that honored the particularities and voiced the concerns of their lives.
Khasokhas has gone beyond just reporting news to help the community with its information needs. During the pandemic, the team launched the Coronavirus Resource Center, offering information about testing, vaccines, and immigration policies in Nepali.
When the first Trump administration revoked Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Nepali immigrants in 2017 and 2018, Khasokhas’s reporting inspired a reader, Keshav Raj Bhattarai, to challenge the decision in court. His case helped protect thousands of Nepali TPS holders in New York City from deportation.
A Legacy at Risk
When India Abroad shut down in 2020, it marked the loss of more than just a go-to news source for the South Asian diaspora: It also ended the careers of many journalists who had built their livelihoods there. Founded by Gopal Raju in 1970, India Abroad claimed to be the oldest Indian newspaper in North America. At its peak, it reached more than 50,000 homes and expanded to the U.K. and Canada.
The paper was famous for its annual India Abroad Person of the Year awards, which honored many well-known Desi Americans, including Mira Nair, Nikki Haley, Bobby Jindal, and Fareed Zakaria.
“As I grew older, I started to think more about why [my parents] subscribed to India Abroad along with Time Magazine. I began to realize that this was a publication specific to their needs that honored the particularities and voiced the concerns of their lives,” novelist Jhumpa Lahiri said in her acceptance speech for the India Abroad Publishers Award for Special Excellence.
“So, thank you, India Abroad for playing a vital role in helping to raise my generation of Indian Americans — for helping us to understand who we are and where we came from, and why and how far we could go,” she added.
Before the internet, these newspapers were essential for staying connected to home while navigating the U.S. Even today, when I’ve tied a saree or cooked daal countless times, I still look it up online or video call my Ammi. I imagine weddings and other cultural ceremonies required even more detailed guidance back then.
Most Pakistani parents [would] prefer to read an Urdu newspaper over an English-language mainstream newspaper. As for their children, who most likely were born or raised in the U.S., you’d be lucky to see them pick up any kind of newspapers.
In my research, I found a 1968 clipping from India News titled "Indian Weddings," which painted a picture of how North Indian Hindu and South Indian Hindu weddings differ, and how Muslim and Sikh ceremonies have separate traditions. It shows a subcontinent of emigrants coming together to understand one another as they faced common challenges in a new land.
Of course, India Abroad is just one example that speaks to a part of the larger South Asian diaspora. Equally as influential are papers such as Pakistan Link and Pakistan Post that have kept other parts of the community connected and informed.
The Future of Ethnic Media
In 2020, the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media identified 950 ethnic news outlets across the U.S. Many still serve immigrant communities, surviving against the odds.
There are at least six Pakistani publications covering the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut area alone: Weekly Dunya International, Weekly Awaz, New York Awam, Urdu Times, Urdu News, and Weekly News Pakistan.
“Most Pakistani parents [would] prefer to read an Urdu newspaper over an English-language mainstream newspaper,” Mohsin Zaheer, publisher and editor of Urdu News, told the Center for Cooperative Media in a 2023 interview. “As for their children, who most likely were born or raised in the U.S., you’d be lucky to see them pick up any kind of newspapers.”
Thikana is the city’s oldest Bangladeshi paper, a Bangla weekly founded in 1990 by M. M. Shaheen, a waiter at Windows on the World in the World Trade Center who later ran his own restaurants before turning to media. Thikana became a crucial resource for Bangladeshi Muslims, many of whom felt vilified by the media after 9/11 and were searching for answers in uncertain times.
Surviving as a niche media outlet serving an ethnic community is never easy. The news business is struggling, and especially so at the local level. For immigrant communities, paying hefty subscription fees isn’t always an option, and relying on ad revenue is difficult when local businesses prefer to advertise on social media.
At Central Desi, we are a grant-funded digital publication that keeps its costs lean so that we can sustain ourselves and produce great stories on a shoestring budget. We like to think of ourselves as the next generation of Desi media, and we stand on the shoulders of giants like India Abroad, Pakistan Link, Thikana, and Khasokhas.
And we remain hopeful that the future will bring growth and sustainability, not just for us but for all our partners in this work.
Tehsin Pala is the associate editor of Central Desi.
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