22 Jul 2002

BBCUrdu.com - Urdu Website
British Broadcasting Commission, London, UK
Supplied note: "BBCUrdu.com is a landmark in online publishing. It is the first news site to use Urdu text rather than scanned-in images of printed materials. Urdu is a national language of Pakistan, but a diverse base of Urdu speakers reside in India, the U.S., Canada, South Africa, Japan and the Persian Gulf. By providing a satisfactory Urdu font [in Unicode - ed.] that may be downloaded onto a user's computer, the website is providing more than just a rich round-the-clock news service. The BBC has an archive of over 40 years of Urdu news output, audio clips, images and political reporting that will now be accessible in its native language. The integration of Urdu language and desktop computers may also serve to expand online use in Pakistan and for Urdu speakers around the world."
[The site includes links to BBC's South Asian news in Hindi, Persian, Pashto, Arabic and Bengali - ed.]
URL http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/
Internet Archive http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/
Link reported by: Andy Carvin (acarvin@benton.org)
* Resource type [news - documents - study - corporate info. - online guide]: News
* Scholarly usefulness [essential - v.useful - useful - interesting - marginal]: V.Useful
* External links to the resource [over 3,000 - under 3,000 - under 1,000 - under 300 - under 100 - under 30]: under 3000