Ranjpur, Bangladesh + Delhi, India – August, 2006: The Telecentre Times – a collaborative newspaper for the telecentre movement – has expanded a footprint dramatically over the past two weeks.

The first big development was the release of the Telecentre Times in Bengali. This was produced by D.Net, DRIK and BNNRC. It was not only impressive to see the newspaper in a second language, but also to see how the content had evolved to include more material relevant to Bangladesh. The result is a publication that can provide true inspiration and insight to telecentre managers working at the grassroots, which was the point of creating a print newspaper in the first place.

There was also an Indian launch of the English version of the Times on the eve of the India Telecentre Forum. At the launch, representatives of all three telecentre.org social investors – SDC, Microsoft and IDRC – handed a copy of the paper to GKP executive director Rinalia Abdul Rahim. The paper was also widely distributed at the Forum itself.

It will be interesting to see where and what the Telecentre Times becomes next. Certainly, there will be another English edition (Ugabytes is working on this). But I expect there will be much more in the long run.