Saturday, 15 February 2003  
The widest coverage in Sri Lanka.
World
News

Business

Features

Editorial

Security

Politics

World

Letters

Sports

Obituaries

Archives

Government - Gazette

Silumina  on-line Edition

Sunday Observer

Budusarana On-line Edition





India to host massive Internet match-making event

by Pratap Chakravarty 

NEW DELHI, Feb 14.An Indian website will Friday begin what it is billing as the world's biggest match-making event, with thousands of potential partners who have chatted on the Internet heading for Bombay to encounter each other in the flesh.

The website, www.shaadi.com, is aimed in particular at the Indian diaspora and was set up as a less-expensive alternative to the classified matrimonial columns of Indian broadsheets.

Organisers said they have received a massive response for the match-making event starting on Valentine's Day as a sideshow to a national trade fair in Bombay, western India's economic hub.

"And what better day to launch such an event than Valentine's Day?" said portal official Vandana Asija from Bombay, where the radical Hindu Shiv Sena party prohibits celebration's for the annual day.

Some 5,000 singles have registered for the six-day event which is expected to draw about 500,000 people -- keeping the website cupids hard at work scouting for soul-mates from among the volunteers.

"We have received an incredible response so far... We have not done any research but we think it is the first of its kind in scale in the world," shaadi.com's chief executive officer Anupam Mittal told AFP.

"It will help Internet matrimonial service providers to reach out to people. It offers tremendous value to potential users as it allows them to meet like-minded individuals on a personal basis and then take the relationship further," Mittal said.

India's wedding market is estimated to be worth a staggering 300 billion rupees (6.25 billion dollars) with gold ornaments as gifts to brides gobbling up more than half the expenditure.

Expenses on advertisements, payments to professional match-makers and the costs of travelling to meet prospective spouses swallow sizeable sums of wedding budgets.

Media experts say most national dailies and a large cluster of regional newspapers survive largely on the revenue from matrimonial advertisements.

But e-marriage service providers such as shaadi.com and Astro Matrimonial, based in the southern Indian city of Madras, argue that the newspaper columns offer tantalisingly scant information to life-partner hunters.

"Such events and other roadshows by websites are bound to increase awareness of their potential in India, where computer-penetration is still very low," said Shivaji Sarkar of the Indian Institute of Mass Communications.

"In any case this e-marriage industry is here to stay because it provides immense opportunity for geographically-dispersed Indians to meet on a safe and private platform," the media expert said.

Traditional matrimonial firms in India too felt that Internet match-making helped cut down on time and money spent on the activity and offered a wider choice of potential partners.

"Some of us who have huge data banks too are now planning to open our own websites and offer parallel services to customers," said Ajit Kumar of the Delhi-based Bandhan Matrimonials.

"In any case, events such as the one being held by shaadi.com will add extra shine on the services we provide which is often looked down on because we are often viewed as touts and agents," Kumar added.

Shaadi.com chief Mittal said: "The scope of e-marriage services like ours will remain fantastic and as far for the diaspora is concerned it will address the geographic barriers. For the domestic market it is great."

www.peaceinsrilanka.org

www.2000plaza.lk

www.eagle.com.lk

www.helpheroes.lk


News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |


Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager


Hosted by Lanka Com Services