The WWW of most URL's (Uniform/Universal Resource Locator's) literally translated, means the WORLD WIDE WEB. As such, one would think that it would be easy to find information and sites from virtually any point in the world. To some extent, this is the case -- but it can be very difficult. As a large part of our assignment was the comparison of the SAWNET (South Asian Women's NETwork) website, with another site which we found to be equally diverse, I chose to focus on the Indian aspect of SAWNET, as it seemed to be the most represented of all the South Asian countries. For comparison, I chose Romania, a country that I knew nothing about, as it is represented in Virtual Romania (http://www.info.polymtl.ca/zuse/ tavi/www/rom_eng.html).

Each of the websites seemed to function for two obvious reasons: to provide some information about culture and country to interested people, and to p ‚rovide access to the atmosphere of 'home' for any people not living in their own country, be it India or Romania. Visually, each site is very different. Virtual Romania is very flashy, with lots of photos, java and shiny banners, and it is set up in a four frame format - very pushy. In contrast, SAWN

SAWNET itself listed some political sites, but under the bold heading "This listing is not an endorsement of any particular organization by Sawnet". I think that this statement is very indicative of the overall ambiance of the SAWNET site - for some reason, the organizers are very careful about what they say and how items are represented. It is a very serious site, in contrast to the fun and info-packed Virtual Romania. I realize that there are serious political and social upheavals underway in India at this time, as is illustrated by the current crisis with Pakistan and in the few articles I read at the SAWNET site: Breaking the shackles (http://www.indiaserver. com/thehindu/1999/04/04/stories/13040611.htm), and Women, Sex and Marriage: Restraint as a Feminine Strategy (http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/users/sawweb/sawnet/news/sexuality.html). Ev en the Cinema section of the website promoted mostly serious documentaries about Indian life. As a matter of fact, I was unable to find any light or friendly Indian websites in my searches - I only pulled up other sites along a similar vein as SAWNET {like Times of India (http://www.timesof india.com/), and the Indian Business Network (http://www.ib-net.com/)} The particular flavour of the Indian websites leaves me wondering if all Indian culture is so preoccupied with only serious issues.

The best evidence that I could find to testify to the fact that each of =the sites is well supported by expatriates, is in the Homepage listings that each of the sites maintains. These links mostly included people from foreign

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1057
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)