Hindustan Times' New Look

I've never been a big fan of The Hindustan Times, especially their web site, which I find to be cluttered and clogged with too many advertisements. Often loading the web site would crash my browser; it was that poorly designed. I gave up on it a long time ago.

Now I hear that they are rolling out a new version of their web site, which is currently in beta. Check out their new home page to the left (click on image to enlarge).

A definite improvement. It's cleaner and much simpler and, not to mention, much easier on the eyes. It looks like they're parroting The New York Times, there is nothing wrong with that. As a former web developer, there is no reason to reinvent the wheel. I consider it a best practice to mimic functionality whenever possible.