“People have raised many issues on our site, which have been bothering them about the country,” said Vipul Kant Upadhyay, founder and editor-in-chief of the website.

10 000 unique visitors log on to the website daily, and around 800 citizens regularly participate in discussions. Users can now contribute their pictures too.

“We will make it a pan India news portal from where every corner of India has participation where people can interact where people don’t have Internet,” said Vipul Kant Upadhyay.

So far, few others have competed with Merinews’ concept, and it still stands as the primary citizen journalism website in India. This type of participatory journalism platform will certainly multiply in the future, given the tremendous potential of the Indian new media market.

The end goal of Merinews, through public discussion and an unbiased environment, is to promote democracy through India.

Source: exchange4media through BBC Monitoring