Who's behind the news?
Who's behind the news?
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New Delhi, India (headquarters) · Founded in Kerala · Maktoob Media Pvt. Ltd.
Maktoob Media is an independent digital newsroom based in New Delhi, India, publishing English-language news, features, documentaries, and opinion with a sustained focus on human rights, minority communities, caste and class discrimination, campus activism, and accountability journalism in an increasingly hostile environment for independent reporting. The name Maktoob is Arabic for "written" — a word that carries in Islamic tradition the meaning of something fated or inscribed, and which the founders chose to signify journalism as a form of bearing witness. The publication was co-founded in March 2014 by Aslah Kayyalakkath and Naseel Voici while both were students at Farook College in Calicut, Kerala; Kayyalakkath was 18 years old at the time. It began as a Facebook page — the first platform through which it built its readership — before expanding into a full website and a suite of social media presences. It was incorporated as Maktoob Media Private Limited in 2018. In the decade since its founding, nearly 700 freelance journalists, writers, scholars, and students have contributed to the publication, making it one of the more genuinely open platforms in Indian independent media. The publication describes India's press freedom context plainly: the country ranked 159th out of 180 nations in the 2024 Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index.
Maktoob's origins in the student culture of Farook College, Calicut — a well-regarded institution in Kerala with a substantial Muslim student population — shaped its editorial DNA in ways that remain visible a decade later. Kayyalakkath and Voici were frustrated by the narrowing range of voices in Indian media at a moment when media ownership was concentrating rapidly in corporate hands and the mainstream press was increasingly deferential to power. They began publishing on Facebook because that was where their potential audience already was, and because starting there required no infrastructure beyond the ability to write and report. The decision to go digital-first and community-sourced, long before those terms became standard in discussions of journalism sustainability, reflected a practical student's calculation about resources — but it also turned out to be a genuinely effective model for reaching the communities Maktoob intended to serve.
The early coverage that established Maktoob's reputation was primarily campus journalism: the death by suicide of Rohith Vemula at the University of Hyderabad in January 2016, which the publication covered as an institutional murder rooted in caste discrimination; the disappearance of Najeeb Ahmed, a student at Jawaharlal Nehru University whose case remains unresolved; the JNU student protests of 2016, in which students faced sedition charges for campus demonstrations; and student strikes at the Pune Film Institute and gender discrimination cases at SRFTI Kolkata. In each case, Maktoob's approach was the same: gather testimony directly from the students involved, frame the story as a question of human rights and social discrimination rather than simply student unrest, and publish with a clarity and directness that contrasted with the both-sides framing common in corporate-owned national media. Noam Chomsky and anthropologist Talal Asad were among those who publicly commended the publication's coverage during this period; Amnesty International cited its human rights reporting.
Maktoob's coverage has expanded from its campus journalism roots to encompass the full range of human rights, minority, and accountability journalism in India. Core beats include the treatment of Muslim minorities under the BJP government, including the Citizenship Amendment Act protests and their violent suppression; anti-caste activism and the lives of Dalit communities; police violence and extrajudicial killings; the Kashmir conflict and the conditions of Kashmiri journalists; the Rohingya refugee crisis; the Delhi Pogrom of February 2020 and its aftermath; and Palestinian solidarity — the publication has consistently covered Israel's military operations in Gaza with a directness unusual among mainstream Indian English-language outlets. In 2024, on its tenth anniversary, the editorial team paid explicit tribute to the 140 Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli forces, and to Indian journalists Asif Sultan and Rupesh Kumar, both held in Indian jails for their journalism.
Documentary filmmaking is a significant dimension of Maktoob's output. Journalist and documentary filmmaker Shaheen Abdulla — who has also contributed to Al Jazeera English and TRT World — has produced films on the hijab ban in Karnataka's schools, the demolition of the Babri Masjid, and the Gujarat genocide of 2002 that have been screened internationally and received critical recognition. Abdulla received the Delhi Minorities Commission Award in 2020 for his ground-level coverage of the anti-CAA protests in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, and the Human Rights Religious Freedom Award in 2023 for reporting on government crackdowns on religious conversions, published in The Wire. These awards place Maktoob's journalism in the company of India's most respected accountability reporting.
The publication's editorial voice is explicitly progressive and anti-caste, anti-fascist, and in solidarity with minority and marginalized communities. It does not adopt the neutrality conventions of corporate mainstream Indian media — Maktoob describes itself as standing against "fascist ideologies" in its founding statement, and its coverage of the Modi government and its communal politics reflects that commitment. At the same time, it maintains journalistic standards that have earned it credibility with international outlets: Kayyalakkath's bylines appear in The Caravan and Al Jazeera English, and Maktoob's reporting has been cited and built upon by major national and international publications.
Aslah Kayyalakkath remains founder and editor of Maktoob, now with a decade of journalism experience behind the publication he started as a teenager. Shamseer Ibrahim — an engineer and experienced organizational leader from Kannur, Kerala — serves as CEO, having joined to lead operations as the publication scales. Shaheen Abdulla is deputy editor, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. Shakeeb KPA, who began his journalism career at Maktoob in 2018 and later spent two and a half years at MediaOne TV's multimedia department, returned as associate editor. Mohammed Shariff, with over 15 years of experience at outlets including The Indian Express, The New Indian Express, Saudi Commerce and Economic Review, and Gulf Madhyamam, serves as consultant editor. Jaseem Palakkavalappil Puthiyamaliyekkal, a contributing editor based in Nottingham who has reported for TRT World, The Quint, and Article-14, extends the publication's international reach. The publication also maintains sister operations: Maktoob Hindi and Maktoob Malayalam, extending coverage to non-English-speaking audiences in the communities it serves.
Maktoob publishes freely at maktoobmedia.com without paywall. The publication is funded by reader subscriptions and donations — a UPI ID for direct support is published on its social media channels, reflecting the reality that institutional philanthropy for independent progressive journalism in India remains limited. Subscription and support options are available at maktoobmedia.com/subscription. Freelance journalists, writers, scholars, and students interested in contributing can contact the editorial team through the website. Maktoob maintains active presences on Instagram (@maktoobmedia, 197,000 followers), X/Twitter (@MaktoobMedia), Facebook, and YouTube, with sister accounts for Maktoob Hindi (@maktoob_hindi) and Maktoob Malayalam (@maktoob.malayalam). Documentaries and video journalism are available through the Maktoob YouTube channel.