iWorld
Wikipedia contributors to share ideas on Wikimedia projects in Kolkata next week
KOLKATA: More than 250 Wikipedia contributors from India and Bangladesh are expected to meet at an international conference ‘Bengali Wikipedia 10th Anniversary Celebration’ in Kolkata to share ideas about the projects run by Wikimedia.
Scheduled to be held on 9 and 10 January, 2015 at the Jadavpur University campus, the two-day conference would mark the 10th anniversary of the Bengali Wikimedia community, said Wikimedia India chapter secretary Jayanta Nath.
The conference is planned to increase content in languages such as Bengali, the official said.
With a mission to bring free educational content at everyone’s fingertips, Wikimedia Foundation runs projects like Wikipedia, an open-source encyclopedia where anyone can contribute, edit and review an article.
The conference is a get together of Indian Wikimedians, students, research scholars, faculty members and all individual experts.
The conference will give the Wiki users, Wiki editors and developers of Wikimedia projects an opportunity to meet with each other, exchange ideas, report on researches and projects and collaborate for the future projects and ideas.
The conference is open to the public and widens the chance for the educators, researchers, programmers and cultural activists who are interested in the Wikimedia projects to meet the Wikimedians.
Available at www.bn.wikipedia.org, the Bengali edition of Wikipedia has more than 35,000 articles in the regional language. But out of its 450 active contributors, a dismal number of only five are from India, he added, sounding a note of caution that how regional languages are losing their popularity when it comes to reading habits.
“The majority are from Bangladesh. We are trying to increase our community from West Bengal,” Nath said.
Around 17 Wikipedia contributors are coming from Bangladesh while another 22 delegates would be from India, it is further learnt.
They will be conducting workshops and lectures for students on how to type, edit in Bengali, upload image in commons, contribute to Bengali Wiktionary, etc.
Contributors from Indian languages like Telugu, Assamese, Hindi, Kannada, Odiya, Punjabi, Tamil, etc would be deliberating upon new ideas in the conference.
A unique feature would be mass editing where a large group will work on articles related to West Bengal together.
“This would encourage people who are new to Wikipedia as contributors. They would write new articles, edit existing ones or upload media files on Wikimedia Commons, etc. We are expecting around 200-250 participants in this Wiki Marathon,” Nath concluded.
iWorld
Arafta Season 2 greenlit as YouTube hit crosses 850 million views
GoQuest, Rains double down on global Turkish drama success story
MUMBAI: GoQuest Media and Rains Pictures have greenlit Season 2 of Arafta, riding on the runaway success of its debut season that has clocked over 850 million views on YouTube and secured licensing deals across 19 territories.
The upcoming season, already in production, will span 100 episodes and continue with a YouTube-first release strategy, a model that has proved to be a quiet disruptor in global content distribution. Season 1, which premiered in November 2025, built a strong digital following before translating that traction into international deals.
The series is currently licensed to platforms including Amazon MX Player in India, Kanal 7 in Turkey, and Vidio, along with several markets across Europe such as Romania, Hungary and Latvia. Across five language channels, the show has amassed more than 2.5 million subscribers, signalling growing global appetite for Turkish storytelling.
Notably, many of these licensing deals were struck after the show had already aired on YouTube, flipping the traditional distribution model on its head. Instead of competing with broadcasters, the digital-first strategy appears to be doing the heavy lifting in building awareness and audience demand.
GoQuest Media managing director Vivek Lath said, “Arafta is proving out what we believed about the make-to-sell model. A YouTube-first release does not compete with licensing. It builds the asset that licensees are buying.”
Season 1 wrapped on April 17 with a globally streamed finale that drew over 102,000 concurrent viewers, setting the stage for the next chapter. Lead actors İlsu Demirci and Emin Günenç will return, with the narrative continuing to explore themes of love, vengeance, sacrifice and fate.
Rains Pictures executive Sevda Kaygısız said the decision to move quickly into Season 2 was driven not just by success, but by the depth of the story still to be told. “Arafta is not just a successful project for us; it reflects our belief in powerful storytelling and building a genuine emotional connection with audiences,” she noted.
As Turkish dramas continue to travel beyond borders, Arafta’s success underscores a larger shift in how global hits are made and sold. In this case, the small screen found its big moment online first, and the world followed.
