MUMBAI:The youth of India have voted Orkut, the social networking forum, as the winner of the Pepsi & MTV Youth Icon 2007. Rang De Basanti, a strong contender, took the second spot.

The other nominees this year included Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan, Multimedia Cell Phones and You.

Orkut joins the league of Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Winner 2006), Shahrukh Khan (in 2005), Rahul Dravid (in 2004) and Anil Ambani (in 2003), the previous winners of this title.

Accepting the award for Orkut users, Google product manager Manu Rekhi said, "This award is a testimony to the spirit of Indian youth and their eagerness to connect and express themselves with freedom and enthusiasm. Google is delighted to offer this platform to the youth of India and play a part in helping their creative, constructive energy grow, fizz and bubble over."

Named after Orkut Buyukkokten, its Turkish creator, Orkut was launched in early 2004. Orkut is one of the biggest youth social networking forums run by Google that helps users meet new friends and keep up with the old ones.

MTV India GM Ashish Patil said, "India`s the land of the young with 50 per cent of our population below 25. Pepsi MTV Youth Icon is the platform that celebrates the heroes of the young. Orkut is the one social networking platform that does that the best. So we`re proud to shout out loud that Orkut is our Pepsi MTV Youth Icon 2007."

To celebrate the success of Orkut, MTV has created a community to congratulate and thank all orkut users for their support. To congratulate Orkut one can log onto http://www.orkut.com/mtvyouthicon and leave a message on the message board.

Pepsi and MTV Youth Icon also shared an insightful research throwing light on some interesting facts about youth who have evolved and transformed from being a bunch of idol worshippers to becoming ultra-cool idea worshippers. Thus, this year we saw entry to some very unique nominees like Rang De Basanti, Multimedia Cell phones and You.

The associate sponsors for Pepsi and MTV Youth Icon 2007 include Ford Ikon, Brylcreem, World Space, Intel and Mentos, with Headlines Today as the television partner, RED FM 93.5 as the radio partner and Caf© Coffee Day as the Ground partner.