PLANET POWAI – Your Friendly Community Newspaper

PLANET POWAI (PP) is the local community weekly newspaper for Powai which has completed 182 weeks having started in Dec 2002. It evolved out of the pool advt free circulated leaflet called ‘Mumbai Bazaar’ which used to do rounds in Andheri(E), Andheri(W), Thane and Navi Mumbai. Currently, PP comes out every Sunday mornings in the area of Powai. Today, Planet Powai has a dedicated readership of approx 60,000 plus in the area of Powai and around. Its readership profile is right from 7 yrs to 88 years of age group.

‘Planet Powai’ started as an amateur activity by its publisher, Prasoon Kumar, a post-graduate from Delhi University . Its Editor, Seema Srivastava is a Bombayite with schooling from Jamnabai Narsee and having graduated from Sophia College Mumbai in English.

With the much felt gap in the suburb of Powai for a vehicle of community news sharing it has been very well accepted and is now being managed professionally. The brand is held by Alabama Multitech Pvt Ltd, a company also engaged in IT related services. PP has become quite popular with residents in the community of Powai and is a much sought after bonding platform. Residents in these areas look up to the publication with eagerness to get community news and information on Sundays.

PP is very well networked with residents, senior citizen and resident groups, NGOs, police, local politicians, small and big business houses, prominent residents, schools and institutions like IIT and NITIE in the area of Powai. It has a good profile of repeat advertisers in the area consisting of home based enterprise to well known brands. News, features, contribution from residents are published and equally balanced in the content framework of the newspaper.

PP has been able to impact the quality of living in this area by civic issue reporting and many a times it has made a difference by the authorities paying heed. It has also been effective to redress consumer grievance of local residents and wrong actions have been reversed.

The possible reason for having survived and accepted for us may be attributed for having retained a firm belief to be useful to the community by way of crusading on neighborhood issues, being faithful in maintaining an interesting content format and repeatedly publishing without a gap ever. Local writers and residents have been regularly contributing content on honorarium.

Residents have been giving leads for news and contributing photographs.

We have dedicated the weekly newspaper to the community of Powai, thereby earning respect and acceptability of Powaiites. We have been so far managed to be impartial. We have been striving to make this suburb a better place to live and create a niche for Powai in an ever exploding Mumbai.