Warren Hastings' Belvedere Estate, near the site of Hastings and Francis' duel. Painted by William Prinsep (1838)

In the history classroom, the story behind the making of South Asia's first printed newspaper, Hicky's Bengal Gazette, also known as the Original Calcutta General Advertiser (1780-82), has never been told with the same passion its creator, Irishman James Augustus Hicky, had for the project. Part of the reason could have been the scarce representation of Hicky in textbooks, where his contribution to the Indian press has mostly been reduced to a few sentences, if at all.