Today is 14th February 2003. The date is significant. It was on this day, a year before that this venture of my personal website was put on the Web. It is now time to pause and ponder. What has it accomplished so far and what are the deficiencies in the initial life-span of one year? The period is neither too short nor very long. It does represent the initial mile-stone, in the package of a longer journey. Look at the objectives with which the Site was launched. Have they been accomplished or how much of them was achieved and what are the failures or deficiencies?

I was new to the task of publishing text on the web. In fact I started using a personal computer as a habit or hobby only from 1998, after purchasing my own terminal while at Delhi. It was then used extensively, as I devoted to documenting system manuals and corporate functional and operational guidelines for day-to-day management of a Public Limited Company at Delhi. It was then that the Internet attracted me and I invested Rs.10,000/- to procure 500-hour net-surfing facility from the ISP Satyam Online. But the year 2000 saw a set back. I was hospitalised, having suffered a mild brain stroke. It resulted in my shifting to Hyderabad and a forced stay in-doors at my home, with very limited mobility.

I joined a short-term computer training course of e-commerce at SSI, Panjagutta, Hyderabad, in the middle of 2001 where I learnt HTML, Java-script etc. A batch of four students in the Institute including me embarked on a live-project to design a website for a Hospitality Industrial customer, as part of our training programme. I am initiated to web-designing in this manner, but It is a weak background for a major venture.

A turn-about happened when IT-Major Yahoo Web Portal offered to provide comprehensive facilities, under their brand name "Yahoo-GeoCities" with the attractive bait "Build your Web Site" all at no cost. The scheme included free server-storge up to 15 MB hard disk space, web-hoisting & editing tools and HTML Tutorials.

It is in this background the project was started on 14.02.2002 in a humble beginning. The Home page was first designed. It was edited, revised and re-designed quite a few times. The first project to be taken up was "My Encounters with Corporate Corruption in my Service". This was followed by the next project "Life After Retirement". Through trial and error basis the web-pages were frequently modified, in terms of lay out, colour combinations and Font faces and sizes. It was an one-man's endeavour and earlier quite a number spelling mistakes went undetected. I later learnt to use the "Spell-check" facility of Microsoft Word, by downloading the HTML source codes of each page in WORD Files and conducting the spell check. The test helped to eliminate spelling mistakes on the pages.

1. It should be an educational website.

2. It should focus on the welfare and career needs of Bank-officers.

3. Its theme should be Integrity in Public Life & Services reflecting, character with competency and performance-efficiency and focus on fighting Corporate Corruption.

4. The core topics should relate to Banking, Finance and Management.

5. I should devote full-time attention to the website and add at an average rate of one-web page per day

6. Web design should be simple reflecting an educational endeavour. The entire contents should converge on the central theme in its diverse reflection and depict as an integrated Literature.

7. Yahoo allotted me 15 MB of Server storage space of which in the first year I have utilized more than 8 MB.

8. Against my target of 1 web-page per day, I was able to hoist 414 web-pages in the first year in 25 Folders each representing one project or sub-title.

9. I have received 27 entries in my Guestbook, representing the comments of viewers. The guest book is an open record (Public document). Anyone can view the entries received in the first year and view the archived "Guest Book". Or you may directly access the current pages by addressing the URL http://in.geocities.yahoo.com/gb/view?member=kstability

10. There were also quite a few messages from viewers directly communicated to me through e-mail. These were all from Indians both within the our Country and also settled abroad at countries like New Zealand, Australia, Gulf Countries, UK, USA etc. All messages either direct or through guest book were acknowledged individually, wherever the sender had furnished his e-mail ID.

11. Eight charge-sheeted officers approached me through e-mail for assistance in defending their cases in departmental inquiries. They were all given analytical synopsis of their respective cases with suggestions towards best possible line of defence.

12. Drafting and compiling quite a few projects now included as a part of this website was started by me in the third quarter of the year 2001 and these text files in MS-Word-format were stored on the hard-disk of my computer. When the website was launched these were later changed quickly into HTML format and uploaded on Web. This particular step accelerated the growth and progress of the Website to a considerable extent.

13. The projects under "Learning Circle" and "Indian Banking Today & Tomorrow" with the subsequent add-on "Indian Banking in the New Millenium" proved quite popular amongst bank officers and students pursing higher education in Management. There were quite a few references from this segment of viewers. In particular I should also refer to the endeavour of four post-graduate students who came forward to contribute their articles to be published as part of the projects on my website.

14. Though the material were started to be placed on the web from February 2002, it remained unaccessed by viewers up to the middle of August, 2002. But by this time the web-site was included in the search facility of Google. Public access gained momentum from this period.

15. Between August '02 to February '03 my Home page received 3212 hits. The two projects for serving bank officers ("Indian Banking Today & Tomorrow" and "Indian Banking in the New Millenium") proved the most popular of the series of projects. The first-named covering 38 files received 14930 hits. The second-named project was taken up much later around October '02, and brought under search facility of Google two months later. Its 22 files (webpages) accounts for an aggregate of 4424 hits.

Operational banking also included four more ancillary projects. The details of these are as under:-

1. Corporate Governance -16 Files - 1736 hits

2. Asset Reconstruction & Securitisation - 26 files - 3435 hits

3. Computerisation in banks - 16 files -3073 hits

4. Banking & Finance - 3 files -99 hits

As these projects were later additions and were included only towards the end of 2002, the statistics therefore relate to a period of less than 3 months. In respect of educational projects under Learning Circle, a serious momentum is yet to accelerate, but still the project on Knowledge Management (19 webpages) received 4172 hits, followed by Management for beginners (11 webpages) 3565 hits.

It is obvious that the material put on the web is well received. This is the only website in our country providing detailed guidelines on departmental inquiries and related service matters. As factual information and statistics provided by Yahoo are reproduced, the appropriate conclusions may be drawn by anyone.

While pondering over the events of the past, the thought shifts to the programmes of the current year. The goal is to continue the programme in the same breath and speed. Future additions to be on Banking, Finance and Management. In the current year the storage of limit of 15 MB to be completed and the website converted to Geocities-Plus with additional 10 MB., thus moving from a free website to a paid category. I look to encouragement of all of you.