Nirantar, a Hindi blogzine published by me, has been lying dormant for a while (a year, to be precise). Its heartening that the zine is alive again with its July 2008 issue available on your nearest browsers now. here are the issue highlights:

    Microblogging

  • Can India afford its villages? This is the cover story for the issue by Atanu Dey and Reuben Abraham, where they suggest that the answer to the problems of our rural economy paradoxically lies in urban development. Farmer blogger Ashok Pandey does a rebuttal, saying such a suggestion is an unachievable day-dream.
  • Twitter buys Summize and Nirantar had an apt introducing Micro blogging to the laymen and trying to fathom the reasons for its rising popularity. The article written by Patrix (together with your truly) quotes Gaurav Mishra and Duncan Riley.
  • Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) have paved the way to access Internet in a way it was never possible before. Soon complete domain names, together with the TLDs would be available in many international scripts. Nirantar has a writeup by Varun Agarwal that analyzes how IDNs would help Indian languages grow on the Internet.
  • He is a trained psychiatrist who was supposed to work in Mental Hospitals, which he also did for some time. But his passion for the medium ultimately made Dr Parvez Imam to choose documentary film-making as his career. Dr Sunil Deepak spoke to the doctor turned director about his passion, his life and experiences and about the medium.

Apart from these, there is ample stuff for lovers of Hindi literature. This edition has stories, poems, book reviews, satire and a unique poem competition too.

There is so much to read, what are you waiting for 🙂