Kāzhcha vs Deepika

Reading a newspaper without anyone’s assistance has always been a distant dream for the visually challenged community. Keralakaumudi’s Kāzhcha gives wings to that dream, it lights up a new world of reading and listening to real-time news and articles. Kāzhcha is World’s first bilingual Voice enabled Newsroom in Malayalam and English for the visually challenged and low vision users, engineered by the Keralakaumudi group after working very closely with the vibrant smartphone users among the totally blind and low vision users in Kerala, India. Kāzhcha App was officially launched by the versatile actor Shri Mohanlal. Keralakaumudi was founded in 1911 by C. V. Kunhiraman and the newspaper's Editor K. Sukumaran transformed it into a vibrant daily. Keralakaumudi Daily is among the largest circulated Malayalam newspapers in Kerala. Keralakaumudi Online, the Digital Media division was launched in 1997. www.keralakaumudi.com, the flagship Malayalam website is comprehensive and nostalgic, not only to the native users but also to the expatriate Malayalee community around the world. Kāzhcha Features :- Audio News: Once you double tap to enter the newsroom, the default Audio News page greets the user. The precisely designed, low vision user-friendly page has more than 300+ category-wise audio news clips every day from the daily newspaper. Each news is played back individually in a Human voice akin to a radio and the ‘share’ option facilitates sharing news on any social-media platform or to a friend. A media player controls the audio playback and helps the user to easily navigate the app. Live News is a precisely designed section in English. It displays all the latest happenings around the world, real-time. Broadly categorised in to Latest, Kerala, News 360, Cinema, Lifestyle, Astro and Info, any user can easily switch and read the articles. Each news article can be shared individually as well. Customisable Settings options include activating calendar to search archives, select audio news grouping by category or by pages, select audio sharing method to social media or messaging apps, activating speed controls, activating share button, sleep mode to pause and resume later and more. Kāzhcha Telegram Community: A link opens the Telegram app to the official Kāzhcha virtual feedback forum for the app user to join and voice his/her opinion about the app and share views on the articles.

The dawn of April 15, 1887 witnessed a rare moment in the history of publishing in Kerala when Deepika, (Nazrani Deepika- as it was initially named) India's first Malayalam Newspaper was first published. A marvel at that time, it was the realization and fulfillment of a long-cherished dream of many, which its Founder Editor Fr. Emmanuel Nidhiry (Nidhirikal Mani Kathanar), a renowned priest and perceptive, creative thinker of those times, initiated and shaped. The newspaper was initially printed on a crude, hand-made wooden press built by the legendary and far-sighted visionary Carmelite monk, Fr. Kuriakose Elias Chavara (now Saint Chavara) at Mannanam; a remote hamlet near the town of Kottayam in Central Kerala over a quarter century before then. This event further marked the epoch-making but humble dawn of organized, elite, free press journalism in Kerala. The Carmelites of Mary Immaculate (CMI) congregation managed the newspaper till 1989, when it was converted into a Limited Company with public participation named Rashtra Deepika Ltd.; with a view to giving it fresh impetus, added professionalism and new ethos. The newspaper's founders had high and noble ambitions for this unique project that served as a major milestone in the evolution and advancement of literacy in Kerala. Under the dynamic leadership of Fr. Emmanuel Nidhiri, (a versatile genius and renowned philosopher of those times) and his team of thinkers, Nazrani Deepika marched unflinchingly over the years into the 20th Century, growing in stature and spreading its wings further. The printing frequency gradually increased from weekly to twice a week and later thrice a week. Correspondents and contributors were from virtually all segments of society.