Internet evolution in India has revolutionized India in many senses. Now, the new media is speedily making a parallel information source in India. The online newspapers and blogs are becoming the alternate options of the Print media and electronic media.

The Internet is being spread across the country with a greater speed. The various news organizations have started feeling the heat of the development of new media in India. Now the newspapers and News channels as well also making silage off it.

The Department of Communication and Journalism, University of Pune has conducted the survey on this growing habit in Indian people. The University Grants Commission (UGC) has funded the study and it was conducted by Kiran Thakur, Head of the department, and lecturer Ujjwala Barve.

The survey says that not only the people living in metro cities but the people of even smaller towns prefer to read the online editions of Indian newspapers and the Indian blogs based on current events. According to another recent study, the habit of online readership has also spread out to as many as 62 countries, in addition to India.

More than 95 percent of the English newspaper readers browse online newspapers mainly for news and 42 per cent of them read columnists. More than 9 percent of them browse for the views expressed in the newspapers. According to the survey, the combined percentage of readers of Op-Ed articles has been touched the 97.7 per cent mark.

Now, the online newspaper readership in India is on the way of boom It is being possible because of the penetration of computers and easier availability of Internet connectivity in small towns and cities.

The survey says further that the profile of the readership of online editions has undergone a major change during the last eight years. Earlier, in another similar study that was conducted in 1998, it was revealed that only 10 per cent readers were Indians residing in India who had a habit to browse the online newspaper.

The study report were presented at a national conference on ‘Regional Language Press in India: New Era, New Challenges’ that was organised by the University of Pune.

As far as the proportion of female Internet newspaper readers (13 percent) now is comparatively smaller than male readers of English Internet newspapers. But this is significance to tell that the number, in fact, has gone double in the last eight years (8 percent).

The majority of the people who have developed reading online newspapers belong to the age group of 21-40 years and reside in states such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Most of them are (60 per cent) have the Masters or PhD degree and above. Professionals from the fields of IT, education and media constitute almost half (48 per cent) the readership of English newspapers on the Internet.

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