Last Saturday, the Indian Railways launched online hotel bookings in partnership with Cleartrip. Under the new partnership, Cleartrip becomes the exclusive provider of hotel content, availability and pricing to the Indian Railways.

Over the last few months, we've spent a lot of time improving our hotel product--above and below the surface. Our key 'below the surface' objective has been to provide the most comprehensive selection of immediately bookable hotels in our search results. Cleartrip's selection as the the Indian Railways' exclusive hotel provider is a clear indication that our efforts at delivering comprehensiveness have been successful.

Other 'below the surface' improvements have been aimed squarely at creating one of the world's most powerful APIs for searching and booking travel online. The Indian Railways integration marks the first deployment of the Cleartrip API by a third-party web site.

We've invested significantly in building out this technology infrastructure over the last two years and it's an altogether new thrill for us to see that technology powering one of Asia's most highly trafficked e-commerce web sites.