Narendra Modi turns 76 today, and the machinery around the occasion, including the Union government, a clutch of BJP-run states, and the party organisation, has already lined up a month’s worth of events. Thursday’s newspapers got the opening act: front pages replaced by paid jacket advertisements, wishing the prime minister well before a single news story got a look-in.

The most travelled of these jackets was not sold by any company. It was a Shiv Sena tribute titled “India's Pride: A conscientious Prime Minister”, showing Modi in prayer pose, crediting him as “the longest-serving Prime Minister of India elected by people” and recipient of “highest civilian awards of 36 nations,” signed off by Maharashtra deputy CM Eknath Shinde. It ran as the front-page jacket on Hindustan Times, Dainik Bhaskar, Dainik Jagran, Amar Ujala and The Times of India. 

The Indian Express skipped the recycled portrait and went for volume instead. There were at least four separate advertorials in its Delhi edition, each dutifully labelled “Advertorial” in small print. The standalone wraparound came from Ashok Singh Jaunapuria, a “BJP Karyakarta” from Sohna, Haryana: “HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the leader who puts Bharat above all,” backed by a scorecard – 57-plus crore Jan Dhan beneficiaries, “4th largest economy,” 2.3 lakh-plus DPIIT-recognised startups, “7x growth” in electronics. Each statistic was footnoted to PMJDY/PIB, DPIIT/PIB, MeitY/PIB and the IMF's 2025 World Economic Outlook. It was a government press-release fact sheet dressed up as a well-wisher’s note.

Elsewhere in the edition, Kalra Hospital paired “Birthday Greetings” with a promotional interview about its own 50-year history and cardiology credentials; Delhi Book Store’s managing director used his greeting to segue into a company profile, congratulating Modi on “the success of Brics Summit 2026” along the way; and TDI Group combined “Warmest Birthday Wishes” with a pitch for a township with “43 acres of green spaces,” and a separate advertorial titled “The Modi Blueprint: Decades of Governance and the Path to 2047.”

Hindustan Times carried the Shinde jacket up front, then the Uttar Pradesh government’s “Seva Sankalp Abhiyan” further in that took note of  “25 years of dedicated public service” above the image of Yogi Adityanath, bundled with a Varanasi sanitation-workers’ felicitation and a bike yatra to Vadnagar, with a full roster of BJP and allied leaders listed underneath. Two Union government ads and a Delhi government ad round out the edition, neither framed as birthday wishes but both leaning on Modi’s image.

The Times of India buried its own front page behind two Samsung ad wraps before readers reached the Shinde tribute at all. Further in: the UP government’s ad again, and a Finolex Pipes & Fittings greeting marking the company’s “45 years”.  Interestingly, The Hindu, in both its Delhi and Chennai editions, carried no birthday advertisements at all.

Dainik Bhaskar took the blending furthest of anyone. Page 5 of its Delhi edition, headed in small print “special edition on PM Narendra Modi's birthday,” is laid out like a news page with headlines, bylined-style write-ups, and headshots, but is built entirely from felicitations by businessmen. The heads of SRK Group, Rajhans Group, Ashirwad Group, Goldi Solar, Greenlab Diamond, Sherow Gems and others each contribute a paragraph on Modi's “vision,” GDP growth, Digital India or Atmanirbhar Bharat, formatted indistinguishably from a reported story. There is no “advertorial” tag, no disclosure, just prose that reads as journalism until you notice every quote is unprompted praise from a company chairman. A separate page carries a joint birthday message from the Chhattisgarh BJP, folding in state unit chief Kiran Singh Deo’s birthday, which also falls on 17 September.

Dainik Jagran ran the Shinde jacket on its front page, plus a smaller single-sponsor version from Sanjeev Kr Gupta of Summercool Group – three portraits of Modi against an India Gate backdrop – and the same UP government “Seva Sankalp Abhiyan” ad seen in HT.

In Amar Ujala, there is also a full-page birthday greeting advertisement from Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on the front-page jacket, while the inner pages feature full-page birthday greetings from Manohar Lal Jewellers and Sanjeev Kumar Gupta, the founder of the Samarcool Group.

Our new project visits the landscape described in Vande Mataram as it stands today, to ask what has become of the country the national song sings about. Support it here.