Nirantar “WordPress special” issue features:

• An interesting interview with Matt Mullenweg, lead developer of WordPress, where he talks about the WP community, his involvement in it and his life; must say that the 20 something guy is really ripe for his age. Interestingly he said that had he not been working on WordPress he would not have been in IT at all, not very hard to believe if you consider his passion for jazz and photography.
• Khaled, the creator of popular WordPress theme “Manji”, talks about his experience at the community.
• Mark Ghosh and Karthik Sharma, two prominent community members at WordPress chat on how WordPress changed their online zindagi.
• Raman Kaul has an interesting tutorial series for WordPress wannabees to help them get going.

This issue also includes an extended news section, apart from the regular blog buzz for the month that went by, you may also read Patrix's reportage on the Blog Nashville event. And do not miss all the regular columns at Nirantar, there is something for everybody there; literature, book review, jokes, photo-feature, blog quotes, Chug's links and a poetry competition where you can win a book. If you are amused by statistics and trivia, there is the revamped “Abo-hawa” section that's on the verge of becoming the wizden of the Indiblogdom. Ok. Ok, I was exaggerating, but it's not bad either. Anup has the bird's eye view of the Indiblogosphere with his Chittha Charcha that takes a glance over interesting posts all around (and no, we are not short sighted to concentrate on Hindi blogs alone).

All in all, an interesting read I suppose. Do let me know your thoughts. If you wish to write for the zine do drop me a mail. We have interesting stuff lined up for Nirantar. In August we would have a “Water-special” issue that is expected to create some buzz. What's more, you too can be a part of this special issue, just watch out for a special announcement at Nirantar. Happy reading!

The motivation behind the zine is manifold: consolidating the creative talent of Hindi blogdom under one hood; perhaps convincing others to take up blogging in Hindi (Isn?t it strange that a language spoken by 400 million people and understood by far greater number of people has only 40 odd persons blogging in the language?); showcase the language blogging scenario in general and Hindi blogging in particular and above all providing a wholesome read on a plethora of topics concerning our nation and Indian blogging apart from other for the outside world.

In the inaugural issue of Nirantar, you may read;

• Best Indiblog winner Atanu Dey's Interview with Nitin Pai
• Book Excerpt in Hindi  from Rebecca Blood's book “The Weblog Handbook”. I must thank her, not only to allow us publish this excerpt, but also to convince her publishers to donate Nirantar 4 copies of her book which we would award at forthcoming competitions at Nirantar.
• Dina Mehta's analytical take on the Indiblogging scenario, which also happens to be the Cover story.
• A tutorial on using Firefox

Apart from this there is whole lot of other stuff slated to become regular columns in the zine Photo feature, a competition, Jokes, Blogger profiles, Poll, Links to interesting stories, News roundup, Poems and Short stories, Quotable quotes, Best Posts handpicked by the editors. You are just a click away from this, and a lot more stuff.

If you love Hindi, you sure gonna fall in love with Nirantar! I look forward to your suggestions and criticism.

Update: Another first 'feather' gets added to Hindi blogging's cap, the World's first Hindi Blog Radio “Blognaad” launched by Jitendra.

We are currently soliciting material for the inaugural issue of 'Nirantar', I look forward to contributions from all. Do not bother if your material is not in Hindi; as long as someone among us can comprehend the language, we will handle the translation work. Click here to know the kind of publication material we are looking for. Contributions and suggestions for the blogzine may be sent to patrikaa at gmail dot com. A prototype of the zine is available here.