Punjab's two large Punjabi dailies, Ajit and Jagbani, are both published from Jalandhar. Ajit was founded in 1955 and is the largest-circulation Punjabi newspaper. Jagbani followed in 1978 from the Hind Samachar group.
In 1981 Lala Jagat Narain, the founder of the Hind Samachar group, was shot dead. His son Ramesh Chander was killed in 1984. The group's journalists and hawkers were repeatedly targeted through the following decade and a large number were killed.
Punjabi journalism during those years was conducted under threat from more than one direction, and both the state and the militants killed reporters.
The Punjabi press today is the main daily source of information in rural Punjab, alongside television and now social media, and its readership is older than its editors would like.
The Tribune at Chandigarh, founded at Lahore in 1881, remains the region's English paper of record.
Ajit and Jagbani are the main daily reading of rural Punjab and their editorial positions differ, which is the nearest thing the state has to a press argument conducted in Punjabi.
Journalists were killed during the militancy years from more than one direction and the press worked under threat throughout. That history is not commemorated anywhere.
The Punjabi digital press is now largely video and runs on advertising from the same emigration industry that fills the classified columns.