Viewspaper, a news portal just 11 months old, is busy following up issues that concern the youth — RTIs on reservation of seats in colleges to plight of students in institutes derecognised by the government.

A brainchild of Shiv Bhaskar Dravid, an ex-student of Shri Ram College of Commerce, this portal had recorded 2 lakh hits last month.

“A majority of the Indian population is young, but all news channels and magazines are airing the opinions of the older generation. The opinions of the youth are not essentially in sync with them. So I felt there was a need to create a voice for ourselves,” asserts Shiv, who is now a full time entrepreneur shuttling between his modest office in Noida and clients in Delhi.

With correspondents in most metros and even abroad, Viewspaper has content ranging from Euro to the Amarnath land row.

“We do not always cover events as most daily newspapers do that. We have reviews and opinions by our correspondents. They are all young students or professionals and we have a large number of our readers write in as citizen journalists,” Shiv says.

DU Beat, an initiative by Kriti Gupta, a former student of Lady Shri Ram College for Women, is a much-awaited newspaper on the DU campus.

Though the primary focus of this weekly is student-related issues, it has a section on current affairs too.

“We have a team of students across colleges in DU and our aim has been to give the youth a voice. We have done several investigative stories on issues like violence or sexual harassment on campus,”Kriti says.

“A major hit was our story on the dirty canteen of a particular college. Our correspondent and photojournalist managed to get a picture of rats feasting in the kitchen. The college authorities finally had to revamp the entire canteen,” Kriti recalls.

In barely a year's time, DU Beat, available only on the campus, has notched up a circulation of over 2000.

“We do not sell copies and have no plans to become a commercial paper. The printing costs are covered by the advertisements we get, but if we do make profits in the future, we may start remunerating our correspondents,” she adds.

Youthv, another news portal catering to the youth, has bytes on campus activities and current affairs. The portal also has an interesting classifieds section, where youths can buy or sell goods and even post their resume for jobs or internships.

An initiative of Neelesh Kumar, a former student of social work from Bhim Rao Ambedkar College, Youthv has a more youthful and informal look.