MSN India partners with BBC Hindi

Mumbai, 25 May 2007: Two leading international media players, BBC World Service and MSN India www.in.msn.com, have teamed up to make the news content of the BBC Hindi website, bchindi.com, available to the users of MSN India's Hindi portal, MSN Hindi (http://in.msn.com/Hindi).

Vineeta Dwivedi, India Business Development Manager, BBC World Service, said: "This is a really exciting development. Thanks to our partnership with MSN India, more Hindi-speakers around the world will have the opportunity to enjoy top-quality news and information from bbchindi.com."

Krishna Prasad, Executive Producer, MSN India, added: "BBC is known worldwide for quality and objectivity in its reporting. We are extremely proud to be associated with an organization as reputed as the BBC to provide our users with the latest and quality news in Hindi. With an extremely large number of Hindi readers in India and around the world, it remains imperative that we provide users the best content in Hindi."

About bbchindi.com: Used by millions of Hindi-speakers around the world, bbchindi.com is a high-powered package of news, current events, background information, in-depth analysis as well as human interest features and light stories in text, audio and video. Staffed by teams based in London and Delhi, bbchindi.com is updated 24 hours a day, every day, and benefits from the BBC's vast network of correspondents and news bureaux in India and across the world. Besides international news and current affairs, bbchindi.com offers news on sport, particularly cricket, latest developments in science and technology, entertainment and show business as well as stories from remote corners of India. While well-known players, such as former Prime Minister I K Gujral and the celebrated actor Manoj Bajpai, write for bbchindi.com, sharing with users their views and experiences, the site also has a strong interactive element, encouraging audiences to post their views and participate in various forums.

About BBC World Service: BBC World Service is an international radio and online broadcaster delivering programmes and services in 33 languages. It uses multiple platforms to reach 183 million listeners globally - over 19 million of them in Hindi - including SW, AM, FM, digital satellite and cable channels. It has around 2,000 partner radio stations which take BBC content, and numerous partnerships supplying content to mobile phones and partner online sites. The BBC's international online sites, which include audio and video content plus opportunities to interact directly with world events, recorded 763 million page impressions in March 2007, equating to 38.5 million unique users.

About MSN India: MSN India is the preferred online destination for Indians across the globe. In keeping with its motto - to make the web more useful everyday - MSN India helps people stay in touch with family, friends and colleagues, gather information and organize the Web around what's important to them. MSN India continues to offer award-winning E-mail functionality, customizable access to the best of online content like news, lifestyle, sports and popular sites like travel, entertainment etc. MSN India started operations in September 2000 and today has over 12.5 million unique users on its network. MSN India is located on the Web at http://www.in.msn.com

MSN Hindi (http://in.msn.com/Hindi) currently offers users content on News, Astrology, Sports, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Technology, Cookery and Humour. MSN India has always been committed to providing quality content to users, whether it is News, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Sports and content in regional languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. MSN India debuted regional language content in Hindi, Tamil, Telegu, Kannada and Malayalam in 2006. These can be accessed at http://in.msn.com/Hindi, http://in.msn.com/Tamil, http://in.msn.com/Telugu, http://in.msn.com/Kannada and http://in.msn.com/Malayalam.

About MSN and Windows Live: MSN attracts more than 465 million unique users worldwide per month. With localized versions available globally in 42 markets and 21 languages, MSN is a world leader in delivering compelling programmed content experiences to consumers and online advertising opportunities to businesses worldwide. Windows Live, a new set of personal Internet services and software, is designed to bring together in one place all the relationships, information and interests people care about most, with enhanced safety and security features across their PC, devices and the Web. MSN and Windows Live will be offered alongside each other as complementary services. Some Windows Live services entered an early beta phase on Nov. 1, 2005; these and future beta updates can be found at http://ideas.live.com. Windows Live is available at http://www.live.com.MSN is located on the Web at http://www.msn.com. MSN worldwide sites are located at http://www.msn.com/worldwide.ashx.

About Microsoft: Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software-any time, any place and on any device. Microsoft has been in India since 1990 and employs over 4000 people across its offices in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Calcutta, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune.