Hyderabad, June 27: The number of Internet users in Indian languages is expected to reach 536 million over the next four years, contributing 35 per cent of $4.4 billion digital ad spend in the country, says Internet search giant Google.

The share of local languages in current ad spend of $2 billion is only 5 per cent. According to Google officials, the number of non-English language Internet users (currently are 234 million) has already overtaken the English users (175 million).

Four languages -- Telugu, Marathi, Tamil and Bengali -- will account for about 30 per cent of non-English Internet users.

The number of language users is expected to grow at CAGR 18 per cent over the next four years to reach 536 million while the number of English users will grow by only 3 per cent to reach 199 million.

With tremendous growth in non-English Internet, Google has decided to focus on supporting the Indian languages.

On Wednesday, it launched Telugu language support for its advertising products - Google AdWords and Google AdSense. This will enable Telugu language web publishers and advertisers to reach out to the large base of internet users in Telugu.

The search giant expects the number of Internet users in Telugu to be over 91 million in the next four years. Among Indian languages, Telugu has the second highest propensity. It is the fourth language after Hindi, Bengali and Tamil for which Google has launched its support for advertising.

With this launch, Google AdWords and Google AdSense will now have Telugu language support, enabling publishers and advertisers to run ads in Telugu. It will also support Telugu language publishers to run ads powered by Google in the language to grow their business.

Content creators, who have websites and blogs in Telugu, will be able to sign up for Google Adsense and run ads on their content and attract advertisers from across the globe.

Announcing the launch of Telugu language ads, Rajan Anandan, Vice-President, South East Asia and India, Google, said expanding support for local Indian languages on Google ad platforms was aimed towards making India's Internet more useful for a billion Indians.

With 400 million Internet users, India has the second highest Internet user base. It is also the fastest growing Internet market in the world, adding 8 to 10 million users every month.

Rajan said that changes seen in India over the last 18-20 months were seen nowhere else in the world. The mobile broadband data truly became affordable with the charges coming down from Rs 250 per gigabyte to just Rs 15-20.

According to him, there has been explosive growth in all categories like search, video, social, messaging and e-commerce.

Rajan said the new users coming on board were very different from first 100 million users. The biggest different is 9 out of 10 users coming online are Indian language Internet users.

The new users were also comfortable accessing Internet on voice. He expected India to be the first voice-driven Internet market.

India was also likely to be the first Internet market where Internet would be consumed more offline than online.

Google is currently offering its top 8 products in Indian languages. YouTube supports 11 Indian languages.

"Eventually, Google will support all these 11 languages on its add platforms," said Shalini Girish, Director, Google Marketing Solutions, India. She, however, did not specify the timeline.

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New York, Apr 7 (PTI): The US Supreme Court has rejected 26/11 Mumbai terror attack accused Tahawwur Rana's appeal seeking a stay on his extradition to India, moving him closer to being handed over to Indian authorities to face justice.

Rana, 64, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin, is currently lodged at a metropolitan detention centre in Los Angeles.

He is known to be associated with Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley, one of the main conspirators of the 26/11 attacks. Headley conducted a recce of Mumbai before the attacks by posing as an employee of Rana’s immigration consultancy.

Rana had submitted an ‘Emergency Application For Stay Pending Litigation of Petition For Writ of Habeas Corpus' on February 27, 2025, with Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and Circuit Justice for the Ninth Circuit Elena Kagan.

Kagan had denied the application earlier last month.

Rana had then renewed his ‘Emergency Application for Stay Pending Litigation of Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus previously addressed to Justice Kagan’, and requested that the renewed application be directed to US Chief Justice John Roberts.

An order on the Supreme Court website noted that Rana's renewed application had been “distributed for Conference” on April 4 and the “application” has been “referred to the Court.”

A notice on the Supreme Court website Monday said that “Application denied by the Court.”

Rana was convicted in the US of one count of conspiracy to provide material support to the terrorist plot in Denmark and one count of providing material support to Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Lashker-e-Taiba which was responsible for the attacks in Mumbai.

New York-based Indian-American attorney Ravi Batra had told PTI that Rana had made his application to the Supreme Court to prevent extradition, which Justice Kagan denied on March 6. The application was then submitted before Roberts, “who has shared it with the Court to conference so as to harness the entire Court’s view.”

The Supreme Court justices are Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

In his emergency application, Rana had sought a stay of his extradition and surrender to India pending litigation (including exhaustion of all appeals) on the merits of his February 13.

In that petition, Rana argued that his extradition to India violates US law and the UN Convention Against Torture "because there are substantial grounds for believing that, if extradited to India, the petitioner will be in danger of being subjected to torture."

"The likelihood of torture in this case is even higher though as petitioner faces acute risk as a Muslim of Pakistani origin charged in the Mumbai attacks,” the application said.

The application also said that his “severe medical conditions” render extradition to Indian detention facilities a “de facto" death sentence in this case.

The US Supreme Court denied Rana's petition for a writ of certiorari relating to his original habeas petition on January 21. The application notes that on that same day, newly-confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio had met with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Washington on February 12 to meet with Trump, Rana’s counsel received a letter from the Department of State, stating that “on February 11, 2025, the Secretary of State decided to authorise” Rana’s "surrender to India,” pursuant to the “Extradition Treaty between the United States and India”.

Rana’s Counsel requested from the State Department the complete administrative record on which Secretary Rubio based his decision to authorize Rana’s surrender to India.

The Counsel also requested immediate information of any commitment the United States has obtained from India with respect to Rana’s treatment. “The government declined to provide any information in response to these requests,” the application said.

It added that given Rana’s underlying health conditions and the State Department’s findings regarding the treatment of prisoners, it is very likely “Rana will not survive long enough to be tried in India".

During a joint press conference with Prime Minister Modi in the White House in February, President Donald Trump announced that his administration has approved the extradition of "very evil" Rana, wanted by Indian law enforcement agencies for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, "to face justice in India”.

A total of 166 people, including six Americans, were killed in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks in which 10 Pakistani terrorists laid a more than 60-hour siege, attacking and killing people at iconic and vital locations in Mumbai.