Journalism of Courage
While international search sites hog the lime light,the vernacular search engines offer an added advantage of searching information in the language you are most comfortable with
Cricket score,world news,movie reviews and much more they offer it all with a click. And the best part is that their restricted popularity never bothers them,as it comes to them by choice. The vernacular search engines,which are gradually getting popular amongst their target group spread all over the world,are contributing significantly towards making India more tech savvy.
Taking Indians beyond Googling,there are a number of sites like http://www.marathimati.com for Marathi users,www.minnal.com for Tamil users,www.raftar.com for Hindi users,www.webbangladesh.com for Bengali users.
Created on Spetember 30,2002,marathimati.com promises an indepth information about everything related to marathi culture,travel,art,literature,business,tourism and more all in Marathi language. The name itself (Marathimati marathi soil) suggests its wide reach.
Marathimati .com is more than a regional search engine or website,it refers to people,places,literature and talent beyond the heart of Maharashtra. We go to villages,stay there and find out about their culture,their life and art and bring that information to the rest of the people, says Arshad Khandare,director of Marathimati.com,who has been the spine of the company for the past eight years. There are 76 on-page links on the web page and the search is generally content based. However,there are absolutely no political views implied in the website. The English version of marathimati.com titled maharashtraprime.com will be available shortly.
Raftar.com,an integrated Hindi website created on July 20,2006 by Delhi-based Indicus Netlabs Pvt Ltd features jokes latest news,local news,horoscope,new songs advice and suggestions,education,stock exchange,Bollywood gossip,religion,and sports. The Manthan Award for Indias successful e-Content for Development 2007 was conferred on raftaar.com in the e-Localisation category. Peeyush Bajpai,director and co-founder of the website believes that if the demand for local language can manifold in case of television,print and radio,there is no reason why it should not happen for the Internet as well. The on-screen unicode Hindi keyboard is a prayer answered for those who are not familiar with unicode typing since they are saved the trouble of learning to type in Hindi.
Webbangladesh.com is the perfect search engine for people who are sure footed in Bengali. We can connect to our loved ones in Bengali through its email service. We can send Bengali greetings to the dear ones and official greetings too apart from other common services. I do online shopping after understanding the detailed rules and regulations in my own language before purchasing anything. On a personal ground,the site helps me to find the latest trends depending on the kind of client I am dealing with, says Nazrul Islam ,proprietor of Classique Designing & Printing,Kolkata. The site offers you weather reports,music,free email,news,phone cards,radio and also information on movies,cricket,football,politics and world news.
