NEW YORK (TIP): Rediff.com has sold India Abroad, one of America’s oldest and most prestigious Indian community newspapers, to 8K Miles Media, a Silicon Valley-based Indian-owned cloud computing company following a sharp decline in the weekly’s circulation and revenue, says a Times of India report.

Rediff.com “hand over the torch to” 8K Miles Media, India Abroad said in its farewell editorial December 5. Headed by Indian-American CEO Suresh Venkatachari, 8K Miles ventured into media business last year with the objective of consolidating highly fragmented South Asian media market. It has acquired several other ethnic publications and radio stations. 8K Miles Media is hosting a holiday party at the prestigious Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in New York on December 16 to formally announce and celebrate merger of India Abroad.

Founded by legendary publisher and journalist Gopal Raju in 1970 from New York, India Abroad was purchased by India- headquartered Rediff.com in April 2001 in for a whopping $10 million. Nikhil Lakshman was the Editor-in-Chief and Aziz Haniffa was the Editor of the newspaper published in New York. The newspaper, which once had a circulation of over 60,000, has been steadily declining. In the October postal declaration, its circulation was shown as less than 18,000. Its full-time news staff based in the US was reduced to four after a series of layoffs, and its production was moved to India.

Former Editor of weekly newspaper News India Times, Sunil Adam will be editing India Abroad under 8K Miles Media management. It is a homecoming for Sunil Adam who was working at India Abroad before Rediff had bought it.