On the Maiden Ton

This is our hundredth publication since the launch of the MEI in February this year. Thirty-three scholars have written for us so far. Seventeen are from outside India. Many of them are from the region. All of them share deep and abiding interest in the region. My own writing record for the MEI has been meagre in comparison – 15, including the one you’re reading.

It is a modest but significant milestone for us.  We are open to the world. And we are regularly accessed by more than fifty countries, including prominent ones in the Middle East. We crossed a hundred thousand hits in August. Along the way, we were also hacked from the region. It put us out of action for a week in September. While we have no desire to express our gratitude to the guilty, we do take it as a sign of our gaining importance.

More evidence? Even the intuitive Google search engine anticipates us. (Yes, go on, try it.) 

This is not a time for resting on the laurels though. We’d like to go with Robert Frost. We have miles to go and we have no plans of sleeping. Not before we can hold, as William Blake put it, ‘eternity in an hour.’ 

The current website has outlived its utility. As a friend put it bluntly: it was obnoxious. (Thank you, friend.) We are in the midst of redesigning the website and would be adding a number of interactive features, including html formats of all our publications. The redesigned site should be available sometime in early 2011. As part of this process, we would be recruiting interns to manage some of our publications. The interns join us with the New Year. We welcome them.

We are currently publishing ten series. Of these, our features From the Urdu Press and India Speaks have been regularly followed. We would be adding a few new features, including daily online polls.

Once the new site becomes operational, we would move to the second stage. This entails developing our digital library and beginning extensive outreach activities.

Our accomplishments would not have been possible without the overwhelming support of scores of friends, well-wishers and dedicated readers. Their contributions and suggestions have made our efforts worthwhile. They have helped us improve at every nascent step. Some write for us. Some read us regularly. Some offer new ideas. Some clean the copies voluntarily. And some have offered financial support. Everyone, but the authors, must remain anonymous.

We express our gratitude to our supporters in various roles. In return we offer this: we will never let you and your faith down. We will make you proud of being associated with the MEI.

As part of its editorial policy, the MEI@ND standardizes spelling and date formats to make the text uniformly accessible and stylistically consistent.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views/positions of the MEI@ND.

 Editor, MEI@ND: P R Kumaraswamy