2001. That was another year gone by. Wasn't it just yesterday that we were so worried about Y2K? Incidently that was the same time that the www.e-pao.net was launched in it's earliest avatar. Whew! time did fly fast!

We at E-Pao! remember our initial gush of excitement during the preparations for the launch of the site during nov-dec 1999. Today we stand two years old. Obviously when a site puts in years of active service, the credit goes to the viewers/users of the site.

Here's a big THANK YOU to all the E-Pao Users across the globe from the bottom of the heart of each one here at Team E-pao! Thank you for your belief in us and for all the suggestions and support that made us strive more for better. Thank you all.

We have had a major face lift this year. The whole site went through an artist's brush that studied the then existing site to come up with a whole new layout. We also shifted from the usual HTML/client-side scripting to server-side scripting with ASP. Long hours were put in by the Layout Designer, HTML Slicer and the ASP engineer to get this new face up and running. To give a brief background on this episode ... we had planned to get ourselves a new layout for the site towards the end of the last year. There were some delays and the design was finalized by sometime in Jan 2001. The slicing and coding followed soon. This version of E-Pao incorporates a highly improved navigation system for news reading and browsing through various channels and sub-channels of the site. It also incorporates a new facility of mailing news/articles (as links) to friends.

We had the misfortune of being hit by a prank hacker, which disrupted our services to our esteemed users for a few hours that fateful day in June. We really don't know if it was a real misfortune or a boon in disguise. On an optimistic note, It did a real time check on our backup system as our webadmin brought the site back to live within hours. It also hastened our face lift project so much that we were able to go live with the new look within few days following the hacker's attack. Since it's a popular notion that hackers hit only popular websites or websites of security/defence/intelligence organizations, we took refuge in that and consoled ourselves.

In our attempt to evolve along with the ever-evolving web technology, we had incorporated WAP and XML into E-Pao! Currently, WAP version of E-Pao! is hosted with wapdrive.com and XML is used for MP3 listings.

This year, in august, we saw a draft of IT policy for the state of Manipur being drawn up by the Govt of Manipur. The same was published here at this site with provisions to shoot back a feedback mail about the draft directly to the Directorate of Science and Technology (DST), Manipur. Earlier, in february, DST, Manipur had organized the state's first ever IT Expo under the banner of MITEX-2001. E-Pao! was proud to be it's official web site sponsor. The site was updated with the day to day schedules, paper presentations, reports and pictures from the expo site at Imphal.

Manipur went through some turbulent times this year. The Government servants were denied their monthly income as the Government stalls up the salary payments. The Government went into a musical chair mode as governments were formed and toppled overnights. The political instability attracted the president's rule and the common people wrath. In June, the Government of India announced the extension of the cease-fire agreement between the NSCN(IM) and Indian Govt into the areas of Manipur which was met with a major resistance from the people of Manipur.

Various towns in Manipur saw violent turns in events following this agreement and emotionally charged mobs came face to face with the armed forces. E-Pao! was there to cover this whole episode as it fed it's viewers with upto date reports and snapshots from the Imphal and the neighbouring areas. Our MB served as a common platform for people to extend and share their solidarity, anguish and ideas. NRMs around the world tried to catch the attention of big media agencies to the situation that is arising in Manipur. News giants like CNN and BBC started their coverage along with other Indian News services like Aajtak and Star News. E-Pao! served as a linking site to them and even got ourselves featured in the news sites of CNN and BBC. Those were our proud moments.

We did have our disheartening moments when we learned that some unsociable elements in our own Manipur were making copies of what our esteemed users expressed in the MB and were using it to incite communal disharmony at the time when every good Samaritan were trying to maintain communal harmony. This was brought to our attention by the well wishers of the news publishing community and our MB had to be temporarily suspended. We thank our well wishers and users for bearing with us and understanding us.

September 11 2001 saw a terror strike at the mighty US. The twin towers of the World trade center at New York was destroyed and many innocents lost their lives. One among them was a Manipuri, Yambem Jupiter. Tamo Jupiter was a big motivator when we launched E-Pao! way back in 1999. He was a personal friend to most of the team members and he would encourage us on all our endeavours. E-Pao! ran special MB and update pages linking the NRMs of the North America with others at home and around the world. E-Pao! lost a well wisher and a good brother in Yambem Jupiter that day. Tamo Jupiter was and will be an inspiration for Manipuris who have stayed outside of Manipur and yet has a firm belief that we, Manipuris, can carve out an identity of our own, no matter where we live.

To move on to merrier parts of the year gone by ....

This year, E-Pao! moved ahead and brought out their first product in the form of E-Pao! Yellow Pages(YP). The idea was to provide all the dealers and shopkeepers of Manipur with a place on the net where they can tell what they are stocking, what services they are offering and what is available with them. Any dealer/stockist/shop-owner can log into www.e-pao.net/yp and register himself/herself and his/her establishment thereby giving the particulars of the establishment. This would enable any user around the world to search for who can provide his needs best in Manipur.

This is not the only product though. This year saw a launch of the E-Pao! eFrenz with much fanfare. This is in keeping with the numerous suggestions that we receive to come out with a personals section. Many personals site were studied before coming up with the current mode, which we hope would fit into the Manipuri scenario. Now we can log into www.e-pao.net/efrenz and expand his/her universe of friends.

All credits for the above products from the E-Pao! stable goes to the technical team who have generously contributed their mite towards making www.e-pao.net a complete e-platform for all Manipuris.

There were other new additions to E-Pao! this year. E-Pao Incidents (EI) and Wathi-Jugai(WJ) were introduced as Sub channels of Leisure. Both are user contribution areas. EI would hold real life experiences and WJ would be, well, wathis, jokes, funny instances, etc. There also is a new sub channel on the News section called Opinions wherein opinions and reactions from users will be webcasted. Starting July, we also run a board called E-Pao! Sounding Board (ESB) relating to specific events of Manipur. Users are asked to rant and rave about those events here.

Apart from these, we run our regular opinion polls, which sees a lot of involvement from everyone. An E-Pao! Instant Messaging was introduced but had to be closed as the service provider decided to close the free service. One thing that became widely popular is the CHAT. Many are logging on into it and are enjoying the ways of keeping in touch with friends over the net. A world time applet was introduced in September updating our world wide users about the exact time at the home state. The Cease-fire issue in July led us to come out with "related news" category as an added service to view the time line of any big event that was covered by E-Pao! The Reviews channel saw new category for Poems which is fast turning into a fertile spot for our new breed of Manipuri poets who writes in English. The Movie scene in Manipur got a new lease of life as Hindi movies got banned from screening. Most of these new movies are documented in the Movies Review section. The Picture Gallery is updated with numerous images from various parts of Manipur. It also has rich collection of Cease-fire related events that happened starting July.

The Links section is hugely updated and records all the notable sites pertaining to Manipur or a Manipuri. There also is a helpline page, which is maintained to offer quick and ready references to telephone numbers and addresses of important places and institutions in Imphal. A collection of Flash presentations that are contributed by users and those that are compiled by E-Pao! are in display in the Flash Collection. The collections of Manipuri songs have crossed the hard disk space of 150MB.

The year 2001 has not been a good year for the world market. As economies crashed, there had been a meltdown in the IT industry. Sanctions got stalled and as business became weak, companies started shedding employees. This did manage to send chills down Government's and any IT person's bones. But surely the economies will improve as it always does. When it does, IT would still play an important factor in the development of any nation and in asserting it's power in the communities of nations.

The IT scene in Manipur is still in the nascent stage but is evolving. We might need more time and many firm believers in the Government to work it out. We at E-Pao! believe that as Manipur gets out of the present political and economic dilemma, IT will play a big role in re-enforcing Manipur's status and towards the upliftment of the economy to a higher platform and most importantly will fit Manipur into the main stream economy.