Upendrakishore's son Sukumar Ray went to Great Britain for advanced training in printing technology, and he joined as an active partner after his return.

The Sukumar Ray years established Sandesh as a magazine that combined literary values with humour and information from different parts of the world.

Ray also introduced his characters Feluda and Professor Shonku in short stories he wrote for Sandesh.

Satyajit's aunt, the writer Leela Majumdar became the honorary joint editor of the magazine in place of Sri Subhas Mukhopadhyay.

However, the inexperienced team could not meet the challenge of the changing times, due to the competition from comics, cable television, and books with coloured illustrations.

Sandesh remained a black and white magazine, and it struggled, incurring losses and skipping issues.

In 2003, The Ford Foundation gave a grant of rupees 22 lakhs to Sandesh to make the magazine viable.

[2] Due to administrative failure of the editorial team of the period, though the magazine had many coloured pages and was more attractive visually, it was not viable financially.

Every year the Saradiya annual number has over 300 pages, and the literary quality of the stories and other contributions are generally highly appreciated.

The "Nababarsha" (Bengali New Year) special issue of Sandesh was published in the second week of May 2013, commemorating the 150th birth anniversary of Upendrakishore.

The centenary of Sandesh was celebrated from 28 to 31 December 2013 with a special exhibition held at "Nandan" and other functions including film shows.