The New Indian Express is an Indian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper published by the Express Publications and based in Chennai. It was founded in 1932 as the Indian Express, under the ownership of Chennai-based P. Varadarajulu Naidu. In 1991, following the death of the owner Ramnath Goenka, the Goenka family split the group into two companies. Initially, the two groups shared the Indian Express title, and editorial and other resources. But on 13 August 1999, the northern editions, headquartered in Mumbai, retained and renamed Indian Express as The Indian Express, while the southern editions became The New Indian Express. Today, the newspapers and companies are separate entities. The newspaper is known for its intrepid and anti-establishment tone. Express Publications (Madurai) Limited publishes the The New Indian Express from 22 centres in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Odisha.

Indian Express was first published on September 5, 1932 in Madras (now Chennai) by an Ayurvedic doctor and Indian National Congress member P Varadarajulu Naidu, publishing from the same press where he ran the Tamil Nadu Tamil weekly. But soon, on account of financial difficulties, he sold it to S. Sadanand, founder of The Free Press Journal, another English newspaper.

In 1933, The Indian Express opened its second office in Madurai and launched the Tamil daily Dinamani on September 11, 1934. Sadanand introduced several innovations and reduced the price, but later sold part of his stake in the form of convertible debentures to Ramnath Goenka due to financial difficulties. When The Free Press Journal further went into financial decline in 1935, Sadanand lost ownership of Indian Express after a long controversial court battle with Goenka, where blows were exchanged. Finally, a year later, Goenka bought the rest of the 26 per cent stake from Sadanand, and the paper came under his control, who took the already anti-establishment tone of the paper to greater heights.[citation needed] At that time it had to face stiff competition from the well-established The Hindu and the Mail, besides other prominent newspapers. In the late 1930s, the circulation was no more than 2,000[citation needed].