Hey Rajesh,

Heartiest congratulations to you! Wow, it's wonderful to look back and think about those times... shell accounts, 56kbps surfing and zap back to today where we're viewing streaming videos and talking about broadband surfing on handheld devices! :)

Once again, wish you all the best for the future. Like your post especially because you're not complacent after all you've achieved! Would love to see an IndiaWorld 2.0 happening. Do make it happen! The pace is already set - what took 10 years to happen now happens in 10 months!

rajesh - i agree with you. if you are interested, we should talk about starting one again - you know we can make it happen

Rajesh, I absolutely agree with your analysis.

More Indians than ever are online, and yet there is a puzzling absence of quality Indian portals.

News sites are actually trying to "upgrade" themselves to portals (by providing email and SMS services) and are doing a pretty bad job at it, I think..

Currently, multinational portals (Yahoo! India comes to mind) seem to be the best choice for Indians - which is kind of sad.

The portal needs to be re-invented. (A better name would help too]. :-)

Sumedh Mungee

Paul Graham's article is excellent reading and highly instructive to entrepreneurs. In the US, there are voluntary organizations like SCORE (www.SCORE.org)that help and mentor entrepreneurs and small businesses in any business. SCORE is a national network of nearly 11,000 volunteer counselors and it also offers cyber counseling. India could emulate and set up a similar organization. With a retirement age set at 55 or 60, India has a vast pool of retired executives that may be tapped for an Indian SCORE.

Thanks to Rajesh for pointing out such a encouraging article. Tips by Graham are very useful. Even I am involved in a startup and trying to overcome a new challenge everyday.

And I think one can only adopt to this change. Some publications like Times Group and CIOL have taken good steps to promote their online ventures, but many others are still banking on the print a lot. It would be highly endanger them if they don't revitalise their offerings and make their infrastructure, Internet 2.0 ready. I feel the promotion of broadband, cheaper computers etc. are not being matched by similar offerings on the web content/application side in India today. There is so much that can be shifted to online works, but just isn't. I remember the DOT com boom where all those online Bill payments, e-commerce shops sprang up out of nowhere. While the same insanity may not be needed, the indian sites must start with some innovative useful product to drive the mass adoption of computing, as well as reep benefits from the already proliferating connectivity boom in India.

- Kshitij Chandan.