Indiawijzer is an information portal. It is a database with information relating to India. It is a comprehensive overview of the Dutch organisations, institutions and individuals involved in one way or the other with India. It covers only one country - The Netherlands.

Indiawijzer is like a "Lifaafaa" - an old Arabic-Persian and Hindi-Urdu word that means an envelope or a package that may contain many diverse contents. The packaging is simple, but you will find the contents helpful and useful.

The database has been designed primarily to facilitate contacts. This Directory is provided as a service to the community, free of charge.

The first edition of the Indiawijzer was published in 1992 followed by a second edition in 1999. The profit of the first publication went to the Netherlands-India Association and the profit of the second edition was donated to the Anwar Qadir Educational Trust for Higher Education in Jorhat, Assam.

As a secretary of the Netherlands-India Association I used to get questions from new arrivals from India, school children interested in India, the Dutch public interested in or associated with India and also now and then Dutch business organisations who wanted to do business with India.

Questions which the Embassy of India, The India Institute, The Indian Tourist Office or India Work Group or others received and were not able to answer or did not have the time to answer were generally directed to me.

This lead to the collection of data and creation of a database followed by the publication of the Indiawijzer. – a guide to India.

It is easy to search the database through the Internet from different parts of the world and the maintenance is more efficient and cost effective.

Indiawijzer in its present form has more than 2,500 pages, 1,000+ images and more than 2,000 external links.

It is the work of one man. Indiawijzer does not cover every aspect of India related organisations or institutions in the Netherlands. But it does cover a very broad spectrum.

Many of my friends have requested me to publish the Indiawijzer in English. Hence most of the information presented in the Indiawijzer is in English. But some chapters are in Dutch. These are meant for the Dutch school children.

Indiawijzer is updated regularly. If there are other India-related organisations in the Netherlands whose details are not included in this edition, please let me know. I shall then contact them. Your suggestions and corrections are most welcome..


I am not responsible for the correctness of the data published.
Use of the data published in the Indiawijzer is at your own risk.


Wahid Saleh
Berkel en Rodenrijs
The Netherlands
info@indiawijzer.nl

My sincere thanks to all the friends and acquintances who sent me photographs to use in the Indiawijzer. Without their permission Indiawijzer would have been another plain text database.

My special thanks to:

• Anne Legeland, director of Friends Indeed, Heemstede.
• Azad Khan of Friends Indeed, Heemstede.
• Chandan Mahanta, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
• Government of India, Indian Tourist Ofiice, Amsterdam.
• Jim Belleau, Oneontaw, USA
• L. R. Sailo, Directorate of Information & Public Relations, Mizoram.
• Nuboii & Matthew Campman, The Hague
• Venkat Reddy, Dordrecht
• Various individuals, organisations, institutions both in and outside the Netherlands

Photos by Wahid Saleh.

My sincere thanks to Deepraj Das from Voorburg for his help in designing this site.

Deepraj spent many evenings and weekends to solve the technical problems. Without his guidance it would not have been possible to realize this project. You can find Deepraj at www.deepraj.com

My thanks also to Saif-ul-Waheed of Philips, Eindhoven for introducing me to the Cascading Style Sheet (CSS). You can find Saif at www.IslamHerald.com