|| Author: Duncan Riley|Tags:

New York Times Launches India Specific Website

The New York Times has launched its first country specific website, India Ink, offering news and analysis about Indian politics, culture, business, sports and lifestyle.

The site, located at nytimes.com/indiaink, is edited by New York Times staff in India and the staff at the Times owned International Herald Tribune (IHT) in Hong Kong

The new site will include contributions from New York Times journalists, including New Delhi bureau chief Jim Yardley and correspondent Lydia Polgreen, Mumbai correspondent Vikas Bajaj and former New Delhi bureau chief Somini Sengupta. Also contributing to the site are Sonia Faleiro, author of “Beautiful Thing,” Nilanjana S. Roy, on women’s changing roles; sociologist Dipankar Gupta on economics, novelist Sidin Vadukut on cricket, “Following Fish” author Samanth Subramanian on the historical context of current affairs, and author Anupama Chopra on Bollywood.

“India is a vibrant country with a wealth of urgent news and compelling stories,” said Jill Abramson, executive editor of The New York Times said in a statement “India Ink is an exciting expansion of The Times’s global reach.”

It’s interesting to see the New York Times target such a huge market, but whether they will be able to sufficiently monetize the portal is another matter: internet advertising rates for Indian traffic is notoriously low, even for high end publications.