Rediff.com India Limited and Yahoo! India, the two leading Internet portals in India, on Wednesday announced a strategic alliance to jointly promote online shopping and mobile content across both the portals.

Under the agreement, rediff.com will power the Yahoo! India shopping channel while Yahoo! India will showcase their prime content like ringtones, polyphonic tunes, wallpapers, java games among others on the rediff.com Web site where rediff.com users shall be able to download this content through the Yahoo! India shortcode 8243.

This content will be in addition to Rediff Mobile premium content currently available on the Rediff shortcode 7333.

The association leverages the combined strength of the two leading portals who together reach a significant majority of Internet users in India.

"We are happy to be partnering with rediff.com for the greater good of the Indian netizens. It's the Indian Net user, which will gain from the combined synergies and strengths of rediff.com and Yahoo! India. Our alliance marks the beginning of a new era in Indian cyber space," said Neville Taraporewalla, Country Manager, Yahoo! India.

According to Ajit Balakrishnan, Chairman and CEO rediff.com, "This association collectively leverages our mutual strengths to the benefit of online users across India. We are glad to extend our comprehensive shopping catalog in a safe and secure online environment to Yahoo! users in the belief that this marks a new beginning to online retail commerce in India."

rediff.com is one of the most comprehensive and foremost Internet destinations providing an exhaustive range of online services to Indians worldwide, including online shopping at the Rediff Marketplace. Yahoo! shoppers will now have access to the Rediff Marketplace which has over 100 shops across 30 product categories.

Yahoo! users will now be able to buy and gift products and accessories of leading international brands like Nike, Arrow, Tissot, Phillips, Casio among others to their friends and families across 800 locations in India.

The Rediff Marketplace provides Yahoo! shoppers to choose from the widest range of payment options in a safe and secure environment starting from the popular 'cash on delivery' payment system to credit and charge cards, cheques, demand drafts and direct debit to bank accounts of banks like ICICI, HDFC, UTI, IDBI, GTB, Federal and Centurion Bank.

Y! India Mobile currently reaches out to over fifteen million mobile subscribers through leading cellular operators in India including Airtel, Hutch, Orange, Idea, RPG, Escotel, Oasis and Spice Telecom. Y! India Mobile will now offer an additional range of value added mobile services to rediff.com users across the country through the use of the shortcode 8243.