No, this is not the case. If there is any publicly available API, IRI will gladly participate in the same for the benefit of our members. That is not a problem at all. IRI does NOT claim to be a non-profit site. "Non-profit" and "charitable" organizations have a lot of bureaucracy/paperwork involved with tax and government oversight. We choose to remain a "profitable" site, which lets us be completely free and independent.
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IRI is NOT a participant in any closed/exclusive deals with any Govt. for Rail or other information. ALL information on...
more... the site is publicly available or input by our members. In the old days, IRI was the ONLY completely independent site of rail information. Even now, all our independent Atlas, intermediate station info, coach info, independent distance calculations, etc. are used (without giving any credit) by almost EVERY single site/app in the marketplace. These sites/apps are backed by 100's of millions of US Dollars from Silicon Valley, China, and other domestic/foreign investment sources. In spite of having unlimited money, they choose to use IRI information, but are careful and smart enough not to give any credit.
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In fact, almost EVERY single so-called "Indian" technology site/app/company these days is completely or majority OWNED by Silicon Valley or a China/Japan-based big investment company. In the current scenario where every other app/site is backed by 100's of millions of US Dollars, which in fact use IRI data without giving credit, it is hard for IRI to survive as a minimal/independent site. However, we are looking into alternatives, without selling out to a US/China-based MNC/investment house.
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As for any Govt. API, we shall be willing to subscribe to the same, if available. Since we do not have the wherewithal to hire an expensive, high-powered team of full-time lawyers, we do NOT wish to use any info from the Govt. unless there is a clear and open API which is available to EVERYONE, as opposed to select few extremely wealthy partners.
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Thanks.