The official site for the FIFA world cup 2002 - www.fifaworldcup.com - is up and kicking with special support from Yahoo in the form of some brilliant ads on the web -Yahoo being the official partner. It is a well-organised and clear cut website with the groups teams featuring in the homepage and a tab menu that has the different options offered by the website. Yahoo is hosting the website and services throughout the competition is likely to be the best as Yahoo's webhosting capabilities are pretty sound.

The official Mascot, music, a screen saver and even an official store is featured in the

Entertainment section - for those who deviate from the regular. Each playing group in the world cup, offers three options - News, Analysis and Group overview - and the internet coverage of the World cup is likely to be as detailed as television coverage. News about the playing nations, statistics of head-to-head clashes are few points of interest as detailed analysis of the playing nations chances, too, are outlined with perhaps, analysis as the world cup begins on May 31, 2002. A well-designed site with pleasing screens and easy accessibilty is sure to make it a 'hit' with users in the coming month.

As usual, things are not the same with Indian websites or websites of Indian origin. Take

Sulekha.com, a website for Indians, basically, that hosts a variety of written forms from writers all over the world. The most common grievance of many companies who advertise in a website is the user-hit that the website receives. Mostly, website owners generate a random number to attract advertisers and thus, dupe the advertising company.

The center of the page in the above figure shows the usage of a Math method in JavaScript that generates a random number.

Although, the Ministry of Home Affairs has put up details about the Flag act 2002 and the POTO law in detail in its website - http://mha.nic.in/ - the last time that a ministry's press statement has reached the public through this website is 02/11/2001 !

Much is required to make internet the real source of greater thrust in developmental processes like ministers inviting personal opinions and comments from the public through their own websites. Such interaction will solve many problems that never come to the fore due to the many levels of bureaucracy in our country. One only hopes that the Indian government and ministers wake up to the internet as a true source of greater development and tap the vast human resource of India though the most accessible and fast medium of communication - the web.