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Net Gains (Mar 12, 99) |
The first site, created by 15 year old Jason Fernandes, is the
Learning Disabled Kids Support (India) site, with information
about disabilities like Dyslexia, Dysgrahpia, Attention Deficit
Disorder, and Dyscalculia. While information hosted on the Net
often is in a cold third party format, this site differs, since
Jason himself was recently diagnosed as being learning disabled.
He and his family went from pillar to post to try to find out
where they could talk to others who could share information on
what to do, and the best ways to overcome the disability. All
that resulted in the clean and simple yet very functional LDKSI
website that today provides an anonymous medium where they can
share their views, experiences and info and thereby help each
other. He's also got a special page with information on Help In
India. Three cheers for you Jason! Keep it up!!
Top Write Corner is a website devoted to providing exposure
for unpublished talent (Shaa! There goes my chance!). The site
has a section for prose, and another for poetry that showcases
unpublished works by unpublished names. The celebrity corner
has articles by the likes of Ashok Banker, Shobha De, Sanjay Maroo,
Vishal (Pentagram), and Kaizad Gustad (Bombay Boys fame). Another
interesting section is Bad Karma - an online novel by Ashok
Banker. The graffiti corner is a bulletin board facilitating interaction
between website visitors. But the most important section on this
site may just be the Submit Corner where you'll find details
on getting your articles published on the site! The man behind
the site is twenty something Elvis D'Silva, who's done a great
job on this site all by himself without any formal training -
all self learning!
Meghdutam is a monthly literary journal on the net, featuring
-- short stories, poems, anecdotes, humour, travelogue, children's
section, preview of books, literary news and events, tips to new
writers, literary quiz and much more. The inaugural issue went
online this month and if you're looking at being published online,
this is another bookmark you'd find useful!
Indo-Med is an effort to put up medical resources available
on the Internet, to help people find information easily. The first
step taken in this direction is a site for the Parkinson's Disease
Foundation of India, which provides a wealth of information on
Parkinson's Disease, with plans to start independent sections
for different diseases and illnesses, and building communities
of people suffering from these diseases. Till that happens, the
site offers users a section called medlinks, which has
links to information on fifteen different types of disorders.
ArtBuzz - which artists can call home - is a comprehensive
website on Indian art on the Internet with art columns, Galleria
(a listing of art galleries in the major Indian metros), Art Treasury
(list of website links). However, Showcase is the section that
highlights on a monthly basis the works by artists in different
categories. This site has a lot of new sections and features planned
in upcoming months, so stay logged on!
All of the sites mentioned have the germ of community in them
and with a bit of effort and nurturing will draw their share of
eyeballs and die-hard members. Another site that's bound to attract
attention is Locate India - a different search engine for
information on the Indian economy and Indian business. Created
by Philip George from Business World, this search engine has catalogued
Indian sites comprehensively. But the unique feature Locate India
boasts about is that search results are displayed by their degree
of importance, so if you key in textiles, you'll see the biggest
companies in the industry instead of every chotta motta joint
around! Try the same search on different engines to compare the
results for yourself…
And if you're a movie fanatic, you can't miss the 71st
Oscar Awards online with them being less than a week away! Log
on and enjoy: