Thursday 3 December 2009

Times Crossword syndicated in Hindustan Times

Starting 1st December 2009 The Hindustan Times (HT) has been carrying the Concise and Cryptic crosswords of The Times, UK. [Hat tip to Anish Madhavan (maddy) for posting this news on the THC forum.]

The first Times cryptic in HT was #21685. This was originally published in the Times UK on 26th March 2001. A lag of almost eight years – but that's all right - crosswords, unlike news reports, don't age too rapidly with time.

This is very good news for crossword fans in India. The Times is one of the best cryptic crosswords I know of, challenging, creative and with the fairest standards of clueing. There aren't too many British cultural references either that could possibly alienate an Indian audience, at least when compared with the other popular syndicated crossword, Everyman in The Hindu (Sunday).

The Statesman (Kolkata) used to publish the Times crossword once upon a time but it was discontinued. It is great to find another Indian newspaper revive it.

Do solve the Hindustan Times cryptic, and if you're stuck with a solution feel free to ask!

How To Get The HT Cryptic Crossword Online

  1. Go to http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/.
  2. Click Search on the header to launch the ePaper Search screen.
    Hindustan Times crossword search
  3. On the ePaper Search screen, enter 'crossword' under Article Search and click the next arrow button.
    Hindustan Times crossword search: 2
  4. You'll reach the search results screen, on which you can optionally modify the date for which you want the crossword (it is today's date by default). The results of search are displayed below on the same page. Click on the result line that has the word CRYPTIC prefixed to it. 
    Hindustan Times crossword
  5. The crossword image opens in a new popup window [*]. Click Print on the window header to take a print of the crossword, and text view to get the crossword clues in text form.
    HT Crossword Print

[*]Note: If the popup window does not open when you click on the crossword, it is possible that the browser's popup blocker is enabled. This needs to be turned off for the Hindustan Times website. Search on the web for "how to disable popup blocker" to fix this in your browser.

The Latest Times Crosswords

If you like what you see in the syndicated puzzles and want to solve the latest Times crosswords, sign-up for the Times Crossword Club here. The daily solutions to the latest Times cryptic puzzles are discussed on the blog Times for the Times.

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4 comments

Ankur Jain said...

Wow, that's a great news for the crosswords enthusiasts here!

Thanks for the heads-up.

Chaturvasi said...

Anyone who needs help for The Times crossword in The Hindustan Times of Thursday, December 3 may perhaps visit my blog:
http://cgrishikesh.wordpress.com/
where all the answers are revealed with annotations.
http://cgrishikesh.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/the-times-cryptic-21867/
I don't intend to this on a continuous basis, but you can always ask Shuchi or me for any suggestions towards resolving any difficult clue

Chaturvasi said...

It may be worth mentioning that if it is the Delhi edition of the HT, the crosswords appear invariably on page 6 - Metro (which can be seen at left panel). In other words, no need to use the Search facility to find which page has the crosswords.

In other editions the crossword seem to be in other pages (depending upon the page level of the various editions).

Shuchi said...

This article has been getting several (furious!) comments about misprints in the HT crossword. Your comments have a better chance of being heard if you write to the HT folks directly, this is not the right forum for it.

I would also encourage you to join the Hindustan Times crossword solving communities - the good people there are somehow able to sort out the errors and continue solving.