Bhuvan: India’s answer to Google Earth is apparently not good enough and it seems that most of it was hype initiated by the pompous Indian media in the light of India’s 63rd Independence Day. I lost quite a bit of hair today trying to use it. Every thing about the product was dull and lackluster and to top it all it was frustrating that people were blogging and tweeting about its superiority even though they hadn’t used the product first-hand.

You need to register an account with the Bhuvan website in order to use it. As if its long and tedious registration form was not enough I had to install some Microsoft goodies like DirectX9 and .NET framework 2.0. And if you have that installed then you also have to install the Bhuvan plug-in which is further pain to see in that page which doesn’t highlight any hyper-linked text. Now if you have done all of that then I congratulate you for your sheer courage to withstand all the effort.

This should work now if you are one of the stupid web user who are still stuck with Internet Explorer. I was trying to make it work on Firefox 3.5 with no success. Ohh yeah!! you also need to disable “protected browsing” for the Bhuvan site in order to make it work on Internet Explorer. This is too much work for a normal web user and that too for an Indian web user Anyway, I finally made it to work on Internet Explorer and I find nothing “killer” about it. It seemed like a half baked cake made by a terrible cook. It’s sad to see how terrible it gets as you can’t find any locations to see outside India. The search for London didn’t turn me any results while a search for a funny sounding town called Bathinda did took me to the place directly in the map.

All in all I’d say that this has to improve. Going by the speed at which the projects of the Govt. of India work, one can easily estimate that it will take few decades for Bhuvan to come anywhere close to Google Earth. I understand that the target market is just India but at least make a good product for Christ’s sake. I wonder why are they not using some good web designers and developers to make it little sexy. After all if you can’t make it good, at least make it look good.

One of my favorite IM application on mobile phones, Nimbuzz has partnered with Virgin India to bring their application to the thousand of Virgin mobile consumers in India. Nimbuzz will be proviing its multi-protocol WAP chat application under the name of Vchatter.
I think it’s great that Nimbuzz is trying to enter new areas with such collaborations more so when India has one of the largest mobile phones users in the world.

Nimbuzz has been doing the same engagements with other brands across the world such as O2 in Germany or with mobile manufacturers like Micromax. Virgin Mobile on the other hand is not a big mobile phone carrier so this development seems like their one of many attempt at enticing in more youth to their services.
Nimbuzz is a sopial networking cum VoIp provider cum IM application which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to stay connected with their online pals on the go. Nimbuzz is not the only player in its niche as it competes with some formidable players like Fring.

The first ever WordCamp in India is taking place in the Adobe Towers, Noida and RealGeek is part of it. The WordCamp has been organized by Delhi’s Blogger Bloc and Blog Design Studio. The founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg is part of this event so we are really expecting some cool things to happen at WordCamp India.

Matt being part of WordCamp India was not just the only reason why we are so excited about it because one of the best blogger in the world, Om Malik is the keynote speaker in the event. We are expecting some cool presentations while our very own Ravish will also be presenting something on the lines of WordPress is not just blog. He will be showing the utility of WordPress for creating web portals and not just blog that people so often relate with WordPress.

You can read about speakers on the WordCamp website while you may follow every single tweet by searching #wci and #wordcampindia on twitter.

One of the greatest irony of this country is that it is considered as an IT nation yet 2Mbps broadband speeds is a luxury only enjoyed by companies. You will have to shell out fortune in order to get an unlimited broadband connection and that’s obviously something not many middle class families can afford. The standard speeds at present is 256 kbps and that is not even remotely broadband.

All of this could come to an end if what I have been told is true. BSNL, the state telecom company launched rolled out EVDO internet in India. The service is not yet available in New Delhi (another irony) but we are expecting it to cover the national capital pretty soon. EVDO internet provides you ‘real’ broadband speeds on the go. So the users can stay connected to web whether they are traveling on bus or car. The service is already available in certain Indian cities and if you happen to use this service then please tell us what your experience has been. You might like to read this unofficial BSNL EVDO blog for more on this.

Thanks to Ashootosh for the tip.

Too many radio channels just like too many TV channels…Radio channels are now coming up with different themes, seems they have identified their listener types.  Radio Today Broadcasting Ltd, the radio division of the India Today Group, on Wednesday rolled out Meow 104.8 FM in Delhi, India’s first talk-based radio station for women.

Meow stations are due for launch in Mumbai, Kolkata, Amritsar, Patiala, Shimla and Jodhpur in the coming months. Talk radio is an exciting, new concept in India and will certainly be an emerging trend in the Indian market.

The launch of Meow 104.8 FM has taken immense courage and Radio Today believes that it is fantastic to be different. Meow 104.8 FM will seek to become the voice of the woman.

Whoa…..India had 206.8 million telephone subscribers as of March 31, up by 47 percent from a year ago. Mobile telephone connections took the dominant share, as fixed line subscribers dropped in number.

This high growth in the India’s telephone subscriber numbers has attracted a large number of multinational companies including Nokia and Motorola to set up manufacturing facilities for mobile equipment in India.

British mobile services operator Vodafone Group awaiting Indian government approval for its bid to acquire a majority stake in Hutchison Essar, a large Indian mobile services provider.

An Article from Inforworld.com States out the details, the total number of wireless subscribers at the end of March was 166 million, up by 68 percent from the previous year, according to TRAI in Delhi. The number of fixed-line telephony subscribers dropped by 1.8 percent during the year to 40.8 million.

As a result of the rapid growth in the subscriber base, India had 18.31 telephone lines per 100 people at the end of March, compared to 12.80 a year earlier.

India added 66.5 million telephone connections in the year to March 31, in comparison to about 42 million in the previous year, according to data released Monday by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in Delhi.

The Indian government is finally thinking about reviewing the current state of internet services in the country and BPO industry. They have been losing a lot of revenues due to grey market operations, second, the broadband is not taking off.

Latest is that the government has asked the telecom regulator TRAI to review the current internet services policy and come up with suitable recommendations.

In the review, the department of telecom would address issues such as large number of ISP licenses, grey market, level playing field vis-a-vis other licensed telecom services and slow growth of broadband services, as per mentioned on a report in The Financial Express.
The govermnet noted that though 389 ISPs have so far been given licenses to operate Internet services, the 98 per cent of the subscribers belong to the top 20. Also, the internet telephony licence has been given to 128 ISPs, but only 32 provide the service.

TRAI will be also looking at the practice of corporates and BPOs on using unauthorised internet tekephony services like Skype and Vonage.