Webdunia, the ground breaking web portal, turns 17

Full 17 years ago, Webdunia had done what no one had even thought of back then. On September 23, 1999, when Webdunia was launched, it was “The first web Hindi portal in the wide world,” a feet without a precedence. From its humble beginning, Webdunia has now grown into an enormous institution, boasting of many branches and services and a massive base of dedicated readers.

Even though the internet had arrived in India in late 80s, its official beginning is marked only on August 15, 1995, when BSNL had launched a gateway service. In those days, websites were very few and far between and invariably all of them were in English. However, it didn’t take long for Hindi to break the shackles and stormed its way into the web world of virtual infinity. Courtesy, Webdunia.

Over the period of time, Webdunia has only spread its roots deep into the web world. Full 17 years later, today it’s a formidable presence across vernacular lnguages of India. For many Indians, Webdunia is their default web portal. And for many Non-residential Indians, it is their first choice Indian portal.

Webdunia’s religion/philosophy/mythology content was extremely popular among readers for its authenticity, elaborateness and a reader-friendly approach. With Webdunia English we now also have brought this content into English, to cater a larger set of worldwide web readers. What we are trying to do with English portal is to carve out a niche for ourselves, a space we feel yet to be exploited to its fullest. We assume that there are many country-miles to cover in the discipline of religion and philosophy and we want to set forth on our journey for the same.

Webdunia English alludes to the faiths and fantasies that can be traced in all walks of myths and texts of world religions. At the same time it doesn’t shy away to elaborate upon the utilitarian and applied aspects of religions while striving to acquire an insight into the larger scheme of things. It also indulges in peculiar philosophical discourses of comparative religious studies and a sub-text of it runs as an explanation of Sanatana’s lasting relevance. We intend to make “Webdunia English” as “one-stop” portal of religion, philosophy and epistemological studies, and we have hardly begun yet.

When we look back to the journey of Webdunia, we clearly see that It wasn’t easy to bring the traditional readers of Hindi on Web, at the back end of the century. Internet was still an enigma for most Indians then. It was the brilliant foresight into the far future of Mr. Vinay Chhajlani, CEO of Webdunia, that a Hindi portal could become a reality and Webdunia has only spread its wings since then, now operating in 8 languages, including 4 Dravidian languages from Southern India.

It wasn’t possible without you, dear readers. As Webdunia turns 17 today, it only feels humble and blessed by the presence of you and it promises to keep the good work going for many more years to follow.