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Outlet profile

Asian News International

Indian right-center, pro-government

Owned byANI Media Private Limited, controlled by the Prakash family (Prem Prakash, founder and chairman; Sanjiv Prakash, CEO; Smita Prakash, editor-in-chief). Reuters held a 49% stake from 1993 until late 2022, when it reduced its shareholding to comply with India's revised foreign direct investment rules for media platforms.
FundingRevenue from syndication fees paid by Indian television channels, newspapers, and digital outlets that subscribe to ANI's wire feed. No public subsidy, though the outlet draws heavily on government sources and official press events.
On the administrationmostly neutral

Background

Asian News International was founded on December 9, 1971, by Prem Prakash as a video news syndication service — the first of its kind in India — initially operating under the name Asian Films Laboratories Pvt. Ltd. It was rebranded as ANI in the 1990s and grew into the country's dominant television and wire news agency by leveraging close access to Indian government officials and institutions. Reuters acquired a 49% equity stake in 1993, lending ANI international credibility for nearly three decades; that partnership ended in December 2022 when Reuters reduced its holding to comply with India's tightened foreign direct investment cap for digital news platforms. Despite the Reuters affiliation, multiple independent investigations have found serious sourcing problems: the Brussels-based EU DisinfoLab published a report, amplified by OCCRP in 2023, documenting that ANI regularly quoted non-existent think tanks, fabricated geopolitical experts, and ghost bloggers whose work promoted the Indian government's positions on Pakistan and China. Media watchdogs including Media Bias/Fact Check rate ANI as right-center biased, citing its favorable treatment of the BJP and Prime Minister Modi. The outlet dominates India's wire ecosystem — its content is republished by hundreds of outlets — which means its framing and sourcing choices carry outsized influence on how Indian news reaches domestic and international audiences.

Sources

  1. Asian News International – Wikipedia
  2. Asian News International (ANI) – Media Bias/Fact Check
  3. #BadSources – How Indian news agency ANI quoted sources that do not exist – EU DisinfoLab
  4. New Report: India's Largest News Agency, Part-Owned by Reuters, Continues to Quote Fake Sources – OCCRP
  5. ANI – About Us

Profile compiled 2026-08-30; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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