While most countries can barely support two business newspapers, India now has no fewer than six fighting for readers in Mumbai and five in Delhi. With Thursday’s launch of Mint, offering “business news you can use”, competition in the most crowded newspaper market in the world – and perhaps the last where print will continue to be considered a sunrise industry – is reaching new extremes.

At a time when many newspaper groups around the world are suffering declining sales and shrinking budgets, India’s are in rude health. Expenditure on advertising in India – valued at about $3.3bn (€2.5bn, £1.7bn) at the end of 2006 – grew more than twice as fast as gross domestic product last year, at 22 per cent, according to the 2007 Pitch Advertising Outlook. The industry is in its infancy, representing a relatively small share of GDP, and is skewed towards old media.