The Manthan Award was first launched on 10th October 2004. It is supported by Digital Empowerment Foundation, World Summit Award and American India Foundation. The basic theme behind this award is to acknowledge the best practices in e-commerce. For the first four years it was limited to India only, then the operation area expanded to SAARC countries i.e. Pakistan, India,  Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bhutan and Afghanistan.

The project manager of Afghanistan Country Component of PAN Localization, Mr. Rafiqullah Kakar had the honour and privilege of obtaining the Manthan Award South Asia 2008 in e-localization category. He attended the ICT Mela and also participated in different sessions about m-content, e-localization, e-culture and entertainment. He gave presentation on e-localization and took part in round table discussions.