The new tabla! website offers an opportunity to bring together and engage with community leaders, entrepreneurs, supporters, and stakeholders, both in the context of the local Indian community as well as diaspora communities globally.
Mr Raja Segar, editor of Tamil Murasu and supervising editor of tabla!, highlighted this at the relaunch of tabla!, an English-language publication catering to Singapore’s Indian community, on Nov 19.
“It is exciting to see all of you here together. This is truly a new beginning,” Mr Raja said in his opening remarks.
Around 80 attendees from key Indian associations, organisations, and businesses came together at the newly minted auditorium at SPH News Centre in Toa Payoh to celebrate the next phase of tabla!.
Housed under Tamil Murasu, tabla! previously operated with a static website that displayed only its e-paper. The relaunch event officially unveiled a revamped website, which went live in June this year, featuring a bold new look, organised sections, and daily content.
Editor of tabla!, Venga Subramaniam explained that though the publication’s primary purpose is to serve the local Indian community, its refreshed website and growing social media presence across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn are also designed to reach audiences worldwide.
In the coming days, the website will see an integrated social media feed as well as an AI-powered quick news feed.
“On a weekly basis, we reach about 17,000 people through our print and website mediums. On social media, we engage some 5,000 users. We’re just starting on this digitalisation journey, so these numbers are pretty good as a baseline,” Mr Venga said.
The event saw a closed-door dialogue session with the event’s guest of honour, Minister of State for the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth and Manpower, Dinesh Vasu Dash, which was moderated by Mr Venga.
The short yet comprehensive dialogue saw many participants pose questions that spanned a wide range of Indian community-specific issues. “It covers almost the entire Indian diaspora, from birth to death,” Mr Dinesh quipped.
Some of the topics discussed touched on language, education, cremation rites, intra-racial and inter-racial integration, moving towards a “we-first” society, heritage, arts, and business issues.
In his closing remarks, Mr Dinesh said: “tabla! has a very important role in the community because it reaches out to parts of the community that may not necessarily be Tamil Murasu readers. The way tabla! and Tamil Murasu complements one another, I think, is the strength of the setup that you have.”
“I know you’re (tabla!) doing more in the digital realm and I think that’s the right way to go because you’re reaching a different audience who’s not quite looking at newspapers, but who still might be very keen on your content,” he added.
A short video featuring tabla!’s former and current leaders was also shown, in which they shared their experiences and reflections during their time with the publication.
Former editor-in-chief of SPH’s English, Malay and Tamil newspapers, Mr Patrick Daniel, observed that the Indian community is the most bilingual. “All of them speak their dialects and their languages, but they are also very conversant in English. We quickly figured out that actually an English paper would be the best way to reach them.”
Mr S. Chandra Das, former chairman of Tamil Murasu, noted: “The non-Tamil organisations were able to use tabla! as a medium for them to publicise their events, so I think it did the Indian community some good.”
Mr Pradeep Paul, former tabla! editor, said: “We also wanted to embrace people who were open to Indian culture. I got a lot of positive feedback from people in the Malay community, who followed Indian movies and music.”
One of the guests who attended the relaunch event, Ms Ranjani Rangan, has been an avid reader of tabla! since its inception in 2008, thanks in large part to her parents.
“Every Friday, when tabla! is published, my parents will be one of the first few people to head to the nearest 7-Eleven to grab a copy. If they are unable to get one by 10am, they will call me and ask me to help them secure one,” Ms Ranjani said.
“Now that I’ve learnt that you can subscribe to tabla! and have it delivered, I’m going to make sure my parents sign up for it so that they don’t hound me every Friday morning,” she jokingly added.
A former SPH journalist and current chairman of the Sikh Advisory Board Malminderjit Singh has previously contributed to tabla! as a guest columnist.
“One thing that tabla! has done very well is providing a glimpse into the different sub-ethnic groups so that we can keep abreast of each other’s developments and events. But, I would also like to see more thought leadership like commentaries, opinion, and critical-thinking pieces,” Mr Malminderjit said.
Ms Renuka Bhagat, founder and director of Masti Media Network, was enthused by tabla!’s relaunch and the potential for future collaboration. “The vision and mission of tabla! and Masti (radio) are pretty much aligned. Together, we can be a wholesome caterer to the Indian diaspora’s hunger for knowledge and infotainment,” Ms Renuka said.
Mr Raja highlighted: “The powerful thing we can do is to go beyond the community, so that the other ethnic groups in Singapore will get to know the Indian community better. They have a thousand questions about us, and sometimes you are not patient enough to answer, so let tabla! talk for you.”
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18 Nov 2025 15:26
