IAMAI’s new chairman Murugavel to focus on entrepreneurship

The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) on Wednesday announced its annual change of guard, with the new team stating that the focus will be on fostering entrepreneurship – and building the industry body’s influence with the government.

Murugavel Janakiraman takes charge as chairman of IAMAI’s governing council. Murugavel is founder and chief executive of the BharatMatrimony group, which owns websites such as Bharatmatrimony.com, Clickjobs.com and Indiaproperty.com. The post was previously held by Anupam Mittal of the People Group.

MSN’s country head, Jaspreet Bindra, has been appointed vice-chairman of the council. Bindra takes over from Avnish Bajaj, founder of Bazee.com. Upen Rai, director of sales at Times Internet, has been appointed treasurer.

Murugavel added that making free or low-priced broadband widely available is a key issue that IAMAI will follow up with the government, especially after the exit of communications and IT minister Dayanidhi Maran.

Commenting on his new role at IAMAI to agencyfaqs!, Bindra said, “We would like to see IAMAI play a more influential role in government policies, similar to what Nasscom does.” These policies particularly involve e-commerce and VoIP, he said. Bindra added that mobile players needed to become more active at IAMAI, considering the immense potential of mobile Internet.

IAMAI also announced that Dr Subho Ray will continue as president of the association. Recently, IAMAI has been taking some concrete steps towards organising the online industry, particularly with its accreditation and credit policy for digital agencies.

© 2007 agencyfaqs!