Indians wanting to pursue daily news in 3-4 regional languages can now do that with the simplicity of their mobile phones and the NewsHunt app. Don’t be misled by the looks of this humble application. The developer, Eterno, has devised this application to be able to support more than 20 regional languages of India.

Living in north of India it was upsetting to miss out on the Gujarati news I have always wanted to catch up on. It’s also the best way to brush up and maintain your language right? Not something I got to do up until now.

Imagine my surprise when I saw the Sandesh font in its ever-gigantic avatar. That’s one of the best things about NewsHunt. It is not just a news mobile app. It’s a mobile app that has managed to bottle more than 20 different languages of India in one single news application.

Coupling the nation’s leading languages such as English, Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu newspapers, NewsHunt is easy to surf. Hop onto the app and some of the leading national and regional newspapers of India are listed with this multi-lingual software. Jagran, Dainik Bhaskar, Punjab Kesari, Eenadu, The New Indian Express, Andhara Prabha, Kannada Prabha and Malayalam Manorama are some of the popular newspapers you can read. Of course there’s my Sandesh too. The application regularly introduces new publications into the app. This makes visits to NewsHunt so much more gratifying.

Select the publication you want to read and a whole list of subjects with regular updates are available for you to gobble. Choose from latest, national, international, business, sports and entertainment news. While these are common for most newspapers, you can also find relevant subheads for different newspapers. So where BusinessLine will offer corporate, market, agro-biz and commodities, and industry & economy divisions; the tabloid MidDay will have news falling under Bollywood, Hollywood, parties, extreme city, and knotty affairs. The good part is, news from all publications (irrespective of the language) is available with similar look and feel. So it’s almost like you are surfing through one single vehicle of information.

User-friendly features of NewsHunt include the refresh option that allows you to update news by the minute. Any time during your visit you can also change the newspaper you wish to see. While the app will ask you to choose the categories of news items during your first visit to a publication, you can alter the settings at any point in time. It is easy to choose your connection settings with NewsHunt. It is also easy to reset your settings here.

The application has a great new feature to enhance its appeal to the current generation of media-savvy readers. If you wish to see pictures with the news items, all you have to do is enable the images options. Alternately, if you want a quick scan and could catch up on the visuals on TV at night, you can disable the images options. It’s a job of a second and there’s no big deal about turning it off or on. Do it at your convenience. Eterno constantly updates the app to regularly align it to readership psyche. So you can update the app whenever you feel like getting a new version for your phone.

The font used on NewsHunt is easy to read. This makes it a more useful news app for mobile phones. A ticker on the top gives you live updates from the newspaper you are surfing. And the news item you decide to read up further on downloads onto your screen in a split second. The first download of the news will be a shorter version of the news. Click ‘Read full story’ at the bottom and you can access the entire write up. How detailed can this thing get?

It was wonderful. I enjoyed all the news from round and about. Through with that, I decide to close the app. Could it get better? Once I am out of the app, the newspaper I screened last is showing its ticker on my phone screen! But then I can disable that too if I want.

NewsHunt is available for free in Ovi Store.

The Indian and Asian cultural scene is up for grabs on Nokia phones! And the Desi Hits Daily News app is doing that wonderfully well. It’s always great to catch up on Bollywood news and gossip, as well as the Indi Pop scene right? What better destination than DesiHits.com for that? Desi Hits is one of India’s popular entertainment and gossip websites, and now its top news is available in a couple of Desi Hits apps available in Ovi store.

Access this application to surf through many exclusive reports on the Asian and Indian music scene. Read up the latest entertainment news from London to Mumbai.

As Indian or ‘desi’ culture picks up, Desi Hits has become more popular among people from across the globe. As a portal, Desi Hits is known for popularising the Indian culture and is a hit with anyone out to explore that. While the website has been popular, Desi Hits has got onto a wider platform with this application. And the benefit is all ours… those who are always interested in catching up on Indian entertainment news, music in particular.

Desi Hits has been a popular platform for Indians who like to keep up to date with desi culture. All the news from this action-packed website is available for easy surfing on the Desi Hits news app. Snippets of the news items are available for a first look. Read further and you can access the entire news item easily on your phone.

The app makes use of your mobile phone browser to display news that covers a large variety of geographies. So while there is news from the UK AMA, Desi Hits also covers news from the Indian Premier league and is the hottest website to cover Bollywood’s collaborations with the rest of the world.

It’s only with this app that I was among the first to know when it happened of Bollywood ruling star Shah Rukh Khan’s plans to star alongside Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio.

While you’re surfing through news on Indian R&B and pop, Desi Hits will also introduce you to couple of updates on American rappers.

It’s an app that can be accessed round the day for regular entertainment updates. The risk is purely one of getting hooked – and even better, they are free to download in Ovi Store.

Editor’s Note: Desi Hits now has a few different titles in Ovi Store, please look for Bollywood News and Urban Desi News.

Even if you possess the most sophisticated mobile device, browsing on the tiny screen of a phone is not easy. But there is one thing that can make it easier… a good mobile browser. So I started to hunt for one. After a lot of research and deliberation I am pleased to announce that the UC Browser7 (India) available for a wide range of Nokia mobile devices has all the features one expects from a quick and easy-to-use Internet browser.

UC Browser is effective but loaded. So it is easier to use this browser than explain it! I’m going to try any way. What is the most striking feature about this WAP browser? It allows users to search on two of the most visited search engines — Google and Yahoo. What is the other? If you are in India, the UC Browser7 has a Cool Sites Recommended section where you can find context links to some of the popular Indian websites such as Yahoo!, Rediff, Indiatimes and In.com. The UC Browser7 also has easy links to the most populated community portals including Orkut, Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. Known Indian community portals BharatStudent and MocoSpace are also available on UC Browser7.

This wonderful application is therefore suitable for users of all sorts. Whether you are a business user or a student hooked onto your mobile device, the UC Browser touches a chord with most of us. With this fascinating browser you can visit websites directly and bookmark the ones that you visit frequently. Imagine how much time this saves an oft-visiting user. It has a history section, just like a browser on the PC, which saves URLs that were visited recently. The File Management and Quick Link features of this app also make it easy to use the browser when one visits it regularly. Much like our upgraded browsers these days, the UI of this browser allows one to access multiple windows in one go. You can switch between the windows as you desire and manage each of them separately.

The UC Browser7 comes with unique tools. To start with, it is easy to launch a context menu on the browser, which makes it easy to customize settings while surfing. The browser also has a fascinating copy feature. It allows you to copy selected text or images with ease. You can also quickly copy the URL of the page with UC. It’s also a breeze to copy text on a selected screen or the entire web page from the browser. This application has the ability to pick and copy text on its own. Now that is something that few other mobile applications can offer!

Everything copied is saved on a clipboard that sits quietly on the Tools menu of the UC Browser7. That’s not all. This handy web-browsing app comes loaded with features. In case you are looking for something on an extensive web page, just use the find option on the browser. Simply type the search string and voila!

In case you are downloading something from the Internet for your mobile device, I’d recommend you try it with the UC Browser7. Downloading is faster and the app stores the file with a user-friendly download manager. This smart manager allows you to save images and web pages conveniently.

Here’s the most appealing thing for a meticulous user. You can set the UC Browser7 according to individual preference. So you can choose how you want the font, the segmentation of the pages, image quality, and even the background color.

Additionally, you can pick a theme for use with the browser as well. Choose from Night, Black, Pink, Purple and Classic themes! You can also choose from an adaptive or zoom mode.

The UC Browser7 (India) is available for free in Ovi store.

Editor’s Note: Another version of the UC Browser, not specific to India, is also available for download.

If you are an information-hungry reader like me, here’s some exciting information for you: India-based media conglomerate India Today has a useful – and free – news and information widget of the same name for its readers. As an ardent reader of all its publications, India Today is one mobile application that I can easily recommend. What’s more, it’s easy to download from Ovi store.

The India Today news widget for Nokia phones has a graceful user interface that is equally informative. Install the widget and the wonderful app comes alive on the personalized home screen of your phone. The news and information widget allows you to stay updated with live content even as you are on the go. I recently installed this news app on my Nokia device and trust me when I say that it has become a lot easier to access global news on the move.

The India Today application meant for Nokia phones is more comprehensive than most other news widgets I have downloaded so far. This live news application provides relevant information such as the latest headlines, budget news, Bollywood happenings, as well as cricket and hockey updates.

You can also use the widget to access breaking news, developing stories, live coverage of events and archival content from the media house. All of this is easily available for all Nokia handsets. And if you suffer from an addiction to astrology like I do, then hop on to the widget’s fortune telling feature. It’s sure to get you excited!

As devices become customizable, so does information. You can choose to receive the kind of information you want, and when you would like to receive it. So you can alter settings to receive business-related news on weekdays and catch up with movie updates on the weekends.

If you are a Bollywood buff, the widget has all the latest news and gossip about your favorite stars. You can read reviews of new releases easily with the use of this superb Nokia app. Go ahead and bring your loved celebrities to your handset before anybody else does.

Launch the India Today widget on your phone and I assure you that it won’t disappoint. Easy to use and easy to install, the India Today widget is compatible with a variety of Nokia  S60 devices (details below).

Good things do come in small packages, and good news comes via this little widget that is only 0.32 MB in size!

India Today can be downloaded for free from Ovi store. All updates of the widget are free, too.

The Ovi Daily App is celebrating its first anniversary this week, and to honour this milestone, we have expanded the blog to include reviews that are specifically for use by consumers living in India – as you can see in this portion of the site.

At the same time, Forum Nokia is sponsoring the 26th National Student Convention (NSC) of the Computer Society of India that is taking place 2 – 4 September.

Forum Nokia has invited all NSC attendees to submit reviews of their favourite mobile apps for use on Nokia devices. The top 10 reviews from all entries received will be published here in the Ovi Daily App India site.

AND, the person that submits the best review will win a new Nokia N8!

How do you enter the contest?

Pick an app in Ovi Store to review, and try it on your Nokia mobile device. The choice is yours; just make sure you can stand behind your review.

Write a short review about the app you select, and explain why you think other people living in India would enjoy it, find it useful, etc. Your review should be approximately 300 – 500 words in length, and include the following information:

• Why you picked the app to review;
• Brief explanation of the features & functions of the app;
• How you use the app you have chosen;
• Whether you would recommend the app to a friend;
• Anything you would like to see improved or done differently with this app?

If you want to include screenshots of the app being used on a Nokia device, please consider using the free Best Screen Snap application in Ovi Store.

Send your review, along with your name and contact information, to Forum Nokia via e-mail.

Remember: be creative and have fun with your review. We want your opinion about the app – tell us why you think others should know about it. Extra credit will be given to those that go above and beyond the basic submission criteria (hint: you could submit a video review …).

All submissions for the Forum Nokia app review contest are due by Monday, 6 September 2010; and winners will be notified by 10 September 2010.

The selection of the top 10 reviews is at the sole discretion of the editors of the Ovi Daily App.

Please note: This contest is only open to attendees of the 2010 National Student Conference in India. Stay tuned for additional contest information for readers of Ovi Daily App India very soon.