Ms Rathi, a young entrepreneur in her late twenties, took a degree in Business Administration from Bangkok, Thailand. She specialised in finance and banking. Later she moved to New York to take a master's degree from the Stern School of Business where she held senior positions in the students body.

Her first job was as research analyst at Asia Securities PCL in Bangkok, and she then worked with HSBC. Upon her marriage into the Rathi family of industrialists, she joined Rathi Global Finance in 1998.

Ms Rathi's first love has always been dance. But she is quite a Jack of all trades, having taken hobby courses in cookery, housekeeping, etc.

It was later that she found her calling. "With the Internet boom of the mid-90s, I thought I could use the medium to further the concept of education for all," she says. The fact that India remains a country with poor Internet access did not deter her.

It was only in January this year that she began work on Indiacoach.com, with the wholehearted support of her family, her mother-in-law in particular.

"She really went a long way to help me, scouring the newspapers for educational institutions we could collaborate with for our website," Ms Rathi says.

"My aim is to make Indiacoach.com a one-stop resource and community centre for education. The way it has shaped out, I'm sure it's the most comprehensive site on education in this country. Of course, we have information about education opportunities in the metro cities, but you will also find small classes being run in small towns across India. People might want to look for a cookery class or a mehndi class in their town and they'd find it on our website," she adds.

While Indiacoach concentrates on Jaipur, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Ahmedabad aside from the four metros, it will soon list services available in Indore, Cochin and Coimbatore. City-specific information is updated weekly, and it includes happening events, training seminars and workshops. The website has sections for corporate training, children's classes, summer vacation specials, chats with students and teachers, and what it calls coaching news.

The site has information on all aspects of academic and non-academic education. The courses are classified under arts and crafts, cooking, computers, education, music, dance, home, personal management and self-improvement, professional and general categories. Again, there are 5-15 sub-categories under each head. "We give complete details about where the institute is located, course information, fees and faculty," says Ms Rathi.

Incidentally, HDFC Bank offers educational loans to people who visit the site.

The website may not be providing guarantee about the quality of services individuals and institutions offer through Indiacoach, but Rathi and her team make it a point to check that the classes listed do function.

Indiacoach enlists the support of local agencies for this task.The website provides access to books and study material, and facilitates their purchase. Students may also opt to take an online course in the subject of their choice, or if they'd rather do it hands-on, they can always register through Indiacoach. Counsellors and other professionals who provide services related to education are also allowed to offer them on the site.

Ms Rathi leads a team of nine professionals, and likes to concentrate her skills on networking. "This is most essential in order to make the site more user-friendly and comprehensive. We have tied up with booksellers and publishers to add new titles to our library so that students can study or buy books online. Our tie-up with Aptech is particularly successful."

She adds that 42 per cent of Internet users in India belong to the age group 15-24, while 31 per cent belong to the 25-35 age bracket. "These figures prove that a majority of Internet users are in the formative years of their educational or professional lives," she says. If this is true, there is scope for the site to do good business.