NEW YORK & PHILADELPHIA, Jul 9, 2009 — The Wall Street Journal’s India homepage (india.WSJ.com) and India Knowledge@Wharton (www.ikw.in), part of the Wharton School’s online business journal, Knowledge@Wharton, today launched a comprehensive online resource for information about rural India, an area which is home to approximately 700 million of the country’s 1.2 billion people.
The new site (http://online.wsj.com/public/page/rural-india.html), hosted by india.WSJ.com, contains reporting, analysis, interviews, commentary and video, combining new and exclusive features with an archive of previously released material. WSJ.com is part of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, which also includes MarketWatch.com, Barrons.com and AllThingsD.com. “Rural India’s economy is thriving despite the worldwide economic downturn, and many of India’s and the world’s largest companies are just beginning to realize the market’s potential,” said Paul Beckett, The Wall Street Journal’s South Asia bureau chief. “Nevertheless, the benefits of India’s economic boom have been late in arriving there, and weak governance and a lack of access to basic services remain serious problems. Business decision-makers and investors in the country and overseas require accurate, timely and independent coverage of rural India’s development.”
“We are pleased to collaborate with The Wall Street Journal in India and enhance our commitment to disseminating knowledge focused on rural India,” said Mukul Pandya, Knowledge@Wharton’s editor in chief. “As we celebrate Knowledge@Wharton’s 10th anniversary we are more eager than ever to tie up with organizations that share our mission to bring compelling knowledge to an even broader audience.” Since News Corp. acquired Dow Jones in 2007, the company has invested in the Asia-Pacific marketplace with the expansion of news and editorial content, including the debut in September 2008 of WSJ., a new glossy lifestyle magazine distributed with all Asia editions of the paper; the redesign, unveiled in December 2008, of Chinese.WSJ.com, featuring enriched content and new features; the launches in February 2009 of india.WSJ.com and an expanded Web site dedicated to content for Asia (asia.WSJ.com); the expansion of news teams in New Delhi, Mumbai and Hong Kong to manage and develop content for the homepage and site; and the regional introduction of WSJ Mobile Reader, a mobile application which can be downloaded for free and delivers content from WSJ.com, MarketWatch.com, Barrons.com and AllThingsD.com to most BlackBerry(r) smartphones.
The Wharton School launched India Knowledge@Wharton (India K@W) in November, 2006 to provide a way for management leaders to learn more about one of the world’s fastest growing economies. Since then India K@W has published dozens of articles focused on Indian business practices, interviews with prominent CEOs as well as special reports on niche topics. Subscriptions to both the online and mobile platforms are rising quickly, with 2009 seeing the fastest rate of growth since the publication’s debut. Overall, the Knowledge@Wharton network reaches more than 1.3 million subscribers worldwide.
About The Wall Street Journal Asia
The Wall Street Journal Asia is the leader in global business news for Asia. Since 1976, it has provided indispensable news and analysis of regional and global business developments for an influential pan-Asian audience of corporate and government decision-makers. The Wall Street Journal Asia has been voted the most “important business reading” among international daily newspapers in Asia in every ABRS/BE:ASIA study since the survey’s inception in 1985.
The Wall Street Journal’s China staff won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for coverage of the consequences of the nation’s rapid growth. The Wall Street Journal Asia, Far Eastern Economic Review and Dow Jones Newswires, all of which are published by Dow Jones & Co., won a combined five awards in the 2009 Society of Publishers in Asia Awards for Editorial Excellence.
Edited and published in Hong Kong, The Wall Street Journal Asia is printed in eleven Asian cities-Bangkok, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Mumbai, New Delhi, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei and Tokyo — and distributed throughout the Asia Pacific region. More than 75% of its subscribers are Asian.
The Wall Street Journal’s web site for Asia is at www.asia.wsj.com and homepage for India is at http://www.india.wsj.com. The Wall Street Journal is also published online in Chinese at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=2637.
About Knowledge@Wharton and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Knowledge@Wharton is a free biweekly online resource that captures knowledge generated at the Wharton School and beyond through such channels as research papers, conferences, speakers, books, and interviews with faculty and other business experts on current business topics. The Knowledge@Wharton network — which includes Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese and Indian editions — has more than 1.3 million subscribers worldwide.
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania — founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school — is recognized globally for intellectual leadership and ongoing innovation across every major discipline of business education. The most comprehensive source of business knowledge in the world, Wharton bridges research and practice through its broad engagement with the global business community. The school has more than 4,700 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students; more than 12,000 annual participants in executive education programs; and an alumni network of more than 84,000 graduates.