The world's a global village, don't you doubt that. Ready evidence being an online group formed by French people living in Pune. And French students or professionals making their way to India's cultural capital will have no qualms and jitters about a foreign land, thanks to the coterie of people who are here to provide information to all their compatriots.

The group was started in March 2007 by Jonathan Vaslin, who created it through his blog as a support of communication between French expatriates living in Pune.

Vaslin explicates, "Some already tried to create such a group before me, but I got one advantage - my blog acted as a support, as it's visited a lot. There wasn't any big website with these keywords and all I had to do to make the group a hit was to keep my blog updated very often."

Vaslin left India after the completion of his studies. He was one of the most active people, but now with enough members, subscribing to it, the group is active by itself and Vaslin's departure has had no visible effect on the working of the group. Since hosted by Google, it's still running with its 42 members contributing to it often. Anyone can register and post messages to the other members by visiting the group and according to the statistics of the groups, there are 200 who simply read the mail but aren't members.

Once you register to the group, you receive all mails that have been sent to the group address. And upon visiting the group, one can also read the old messages and send a mail to all members of the group at one go.

The general topics of discussion at the group are the next parties and events in Pune, the mailing list acting as a support of communication.

Francois Benaiteau, a student of engineering studying in Pune, has been a member of the group since ten months. A friend of Vaslin, he consulted with the members of the group before coming to Pune. "The group functions as a good way to exchange information and most of the members having grown into friends, we invite each other to parties. The occasion can be anything, when someone is leaving for France, they geneally invite other members at their place to throw a party," says Benaiteau. He recently caught the new Indiana Jones movie in the theatre along with his friends from the group. He says that the group is also seen as a place for acquiring information about Pune by French people wishing to visit it and inquire about the different facilities like lodging, and the different places to be visited here.

Olivier Gouttebel, who works in a company and has been a member of the group for quite a few months says, "The group is a good way of reaching out to French people living in Pune. Also, for people from France who come to Pune for the first time and miss French people, the group assures them that there are compatriots here to support them and they can avail help and facilities from us, as required."

As most of the messages posted on the group are in French, most of the members of the group are French nationals along with some Indians, who understand French and some Canadians and some English people.

The group is visited by around 1500 people in a week and it's not just an online group, the members meet quite often, at restaurants, theatres and in each other's houses. "We are first and foremost a group in real life," says Vaslin.