While international search sites hog the lime light, the vernacular search engines offer an added advantage of searching information in the language you are most comfortable with

Cricket score, world news, movie reviews and much more – they offer it all with a click. And the best part is that their restricted popularity never bothers them, as it comes to them by choice. The vernacular search engines, which are gradually getting popular amongst their target group spread all over the world, are contributing significantly towards making India more tech savvy.

Taking Indians beyond Googling, there are a number of sites like www.marathimati.com for Marathi users, www.minnal.com for Tamil users, www.raftar.com for Hindi users, www.webbangladesh.com for Bengali users.

Created on Spetember 30, 2002, marathimati.com promises an indepth information about everything related to marathi culture, travel, art, literature, business, tourism and more – all in Marathi language. The name itself (Marathimati – marathi soil) suggests its wide reach.

“Marathimati .com is more than a regional search engine or website, it refers to people, places, literature and talent beyond the heart of Maharashtra. We go to villages, stay there and find out about their culture, their life and art and bring that information to the rest of the people,” says Arshad Khandare, director of Marathimati.com, who has been the spine of the company for the past eight years. There are 76 on-page links on the web page and the search is generally content based. However, there are absolutely no political views implied in the website. The English version of marathimati.com titled maharashtraprime.com will be available shortly.

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