Registrar of Newspapers for India

Office of the Registrar of the Newspapers for India (official name), more popularly known as Registrar of Newspapers for India (RNI), is a Government of India statutory body of Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for the registration of the publications, such as newspapers and magazines, India. It was established on 1 July 1956, on the recommendation of the First Press Commission in 1953 and by amending the Press and Registration of Books Act 1867. The Office of the Registrar of Newspapers for India is headquartered in New Delhi, and has five regional offices at Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Bhopal and Guwahati. RNI regulates and monitors printing and publication of newspapers based on the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867 and the Registration of Newspapers (Central) Rules, 1956. The registrar is designated as Press Registrar, and S M Khan a 1982 batch senior IIS officer is the current Press Registrar and Head of Department.

The Press and Registration of Books Act contains the duties and functions of the RNI. On account of some more responsibilities entrusted upon RNI during all these years, the office is performing both statutory as well as some non-statutory functions. Online registration system was formally inaugurated in 2004 by the Information and Broadcasting Minister S. Jaipal Reddy.

Under statutory functions, RNI performs the following duties

The following fall under the non-statutory functions:

Registrar maintains the legal procedures for registering a newspaper, which can be summarised as:

As of 31st March 2016, there are 1,10,851 publications registered with RNI in India. All publications of India as well as publication imported in India for sales require the mandatory registration with RNI. They are also required to submit their annual report on circulation numbers.