Celebrating 25 years of Internet in India.
We have become used to an internet-connected world. It all began back on August 15, 1995, when the internet was first made available in India. It has been over 25 years making it a quarter-century for the internet age. Here are some of the great events associated with the internet that happened over the past two decades:
1995: VSNL, an internet service provider, made its internet services available to general consumers.
1996: Rediff.com came into existence. The website provided a free mailing client and it was also an Indian news, information, entertainment and shopping web portal.
1997: Naukri.com, an Indian employment website, came into existence. It allowed job seekers to look for job openings right from the comfort of their homes.
1998: Sify launched the first private ISP in India.
1999: Webdunia launched the first Hindi website around the globe.
2000: ITC e-choupal and IT law were launched in India.
2001: India's first cybercrime was reported in 2001.
2002: India's first undersea cable network was launched.
2003: Bharti Airtel launched its broadband services in India. Air Deccan brought online ticket booking service to the country.
2004: BSNL started its broadband services in 2004. Also, Google inaugurated its first-ever office in India.
2005: Remember Orkut? Google's social networking website was started in 2005.
2006: Just one year after the introduction of Orkut, Facebook entered India.
2007: Twitter, Google News and Flipkart finally came into existence.
2008: The first Apple iPhone entered in India back in 2008.
2009: A policy was drafted in order to bring Indian languages on the internet.
2010: 3G auction took place in India. Also, Facebook started leading when compared to Orkut.
2011: MNP or Mobile Number Portability was made available. It allowed users to switch between different networks without changing their number.
2012: The internet gained over 13.7 crore users in India and 250 crore users worldwide.
2013: Flipkart launched its own payment service dubbed PayZippy.
2014: India became the third country with the most active internet users.
2015: Government of India announced the Digital India campaign.
2016: Reliance Jio came into existence and changed the way people looked at Internet usage charges.
2017: In 2017, India had the cheapest mobile data in the world.
2018: The National Digital Communications Policy, 2018 came into existence.
2019: Internet users started rising at a faster pace.
2020: Due to COVID-19, Internet consumption increased and apps like Zoom, Google Meet were being used the most.
