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Beyond Barriers

author-image
DQI Bureau
New Update

Language is intended to lower barriers not raise them, but more

than 90 crore Indians have been left out of the computing revolution

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Over the

past decade, both IT and Indian languages have discovered each other as

impediments in each other's growth. While a large mass of population is left

out because of a 'lack of English' knowledge, the other school of thought

says that the presence of so many languages has curbed the growth of IT in the

country. Obviously, a lot has to go into bridging this gap and to make sure that

Indian language technology catches up with the strides of the fast developing

technology.

In the words of B

Mallikarjun, the Central Institute of Indian languages, Mysore, “The variety

and richness of natural languages is itself an impediment for the growth of IT.

Applications tend to be more standardized or homogenized because technology

becomes easier only with standardization. In order to control the damage being

done to Indian languages due to globalization and information technology, the

concept of localization of technologies is advocated.”

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Though the going seems

tough, the tough are already on the go. Among a few verticals that is aggressive

on the use of local languages in IT, the Indian e-Gov initiatives have come

across as a strong user and supporter of Indian language software. A number of

initiatives promoting and propagating the use of Indian language software but

there are still miles to go.

The Key Drivers



It goes without saying that government is the biggest user of language

software, and this is where local language software applications are silently

causing a big revolution. Without a regional language interface, the

government's main objective of a transparent, people friendly governance

cannot be fulfilled.

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Citizen service Centers

(CSC) and rural knowledge centers are major hubs for beneficiaries of such local

language software. It is the important that Gram Panchayats, help them connect

better at the block levels, thereby giving the whole state a tool for seamless

and comfortable internal information interchange.

Some such examples are:

Agmarknet, which is a government of India portal on agricultural marketing, is

available in 8 regional languages. Jagriti E-Sewa, which is a Government of

Punjab initiative for community-owned, people centered information is available

to rural folk in the Punjabi language.

Though government

initiatives are being rolled out at a heady pace, many are still waiting to be

customized to Indian languages. Mala Mittal, Technical Director, NIC says,

“NIC's web-based solution for community information 'eNRICH' that has

been rolled out for the benefit of north-eastern states is currently available

in English. However, it is a matter of time before the content is customized to

the local language.”

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In the corporate space

printing and publishing is the only major industry seeking Indian language

software. Not that the market is stagnant here-with new regional news channels

popping up by the day, the demand for software here, keeps on increasing.

Available

Language Softwares

Consortium on Innovation and Language Technology

(CoIL-Tech)



(The list is not exhaustive)



Artech: Akshar compatible with Windows and Akshar Naveen, an
independent office suite available in 4 Indian languages



Microsoft: MS Office 2003 Hindi. XP starter edition in Hindi and
Tamil



TDIL along with C-Dac have developed self-learning packages- LILA
Hindi Prabodh, Hindi Praveen, and Hindi Pragya



C-DAC: GIST Card, Leap Office-2000, ISM-2000 V-5/ISM Soft, and
ISM-2000 Publisher



Summit: Indica-2000


Modular: Shree Lipi 2.0, Ankur


Chennai Kavigal: Shakti office suite


Webduniya India: webduniya.com, E-Parta, and Windik Professional


Akruti.com


CK Technologies








Set up in 2002, MAIT—CoIL-Tech

is a consortium of IT companies engaged in development of local language

applications and products. The Technology Development in Indian Languages

(TDIL) group of the department of IT funds the consortium. Under CoIL-Tech,

the CoIL-NET (Content creation of IT Localization Network) programe of the

Ministry of communications and IT is formulated to bridge the existing

digital divide by appreciably improving IT penetration and awareness

levels, using Hindi as a medium of delivery in Hindi speaking states Vinnie

Mehta
, executive director, MAIT shared a few insights with us on the

topic:



Why CoIL-Tech?


As an industry, we have been driving PCs only to those select 5-7% of our
English speaking population. There is no attempt being made to capture the

rest of the market and increase the knowledge base. The consortium focuses

on development of local language technology, standards, and market

development. Coil-Tech aims to make software in every Indian language and

make it Unicode compatible, support localization and help spread awareness

in rural areas.



What movement have you seen on these lines in the previous years?


In the last one year, there has been a visible change in the
government's strategy, from looking at an increase in PC penetration to

one that is more eager on IT penetration. Decreasing PC and broadband

prices and increasing stress on local language software are definitely

helping this. Other than the government body initiatives MNCs such as IBM,

Oracle, Microsoft, and HP are contributing significantly to the

revolution.



Software Availability



According to Frost and Sullivan's 'Language Technologies Market Survey

report', the local language Applications market is expected to cross $64 mn in

2005. The study reveals that the limited availability of vernacular software,

fonts, and lack of standards hitherto have been the major causes. In addition,

the industry is highly nascent and fragmented.

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According to Alok

Gupta, CEO, Softmart Solutions, “The issue is not the software alone, the

Indian education sector will have to focus on fundamental quality and efficiency

of vernacular IT education.” Softmart has recently shipped 2000 cases of such

software to the Government of Rajasthan.

Raveesh Bajaj, senior

product manager, office and localization at Microsoft is very positive about the

current situation and future prospects of language software in India, not only

for the government initiatives, but also in other verticals. “SMS in Indian

language is increasing by the day. It is only a matter of being able to provide

the relevant software to the concerned community of users.”

Microsoft's Project

'Bhasha' that was launched in 2003 focused on four key areas

primarily-product localization, government collaboration, academia, and

developer integration and building a local language eco-system through community

involvement. Under the initiative, Microsoft has done a lot of work with the

state and the central government.

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Artech India, which is

another major company pioneering work in Indian Language Software since 1984,

has approximately 25% of its software revenues being generated from this stream

of business.  Ajay Poddar, MD,

Artech says, “ Except publishing, we have seen scanty demand for language

software in the corporate sector and even in the home segment. NGO's are

however promoting these software's for citizen reach projects through

kiosks.”

Some of Artech's

clients from the government space include-the PM's office, Defence Research

and Development Organization (DRDO), Ministries of Food, Finance, Science &

Technology and Defence. Some of Microsoft's application users include Ministry

of Railways, Ministry of Communications, and Department of Posts, Governments of

Kerela, Gujarat and Karnataka.

“Skills

are more important than language”




Computers should be purchased in

bilingual form.

Any

computer will be considered bilingual only when it has the capability for

data entry in Hindi along with English, it could be displayed on the

monitor in either script and the output could be produced from the

computer either in Hindi or English at will....

Bilingual

word-processing packages should be provided on all the personal computers

installed in the offices of the central Government.






-From the 'Electro-Mechanical

Facilities and the Official Language Policy'



 

According to ML Gupta,

joint secretary, Official Languages, as per the Annual Programe 2005-2006

of the department, the central government offices across the country have

to provide for bilingual computer capability before March 31st 2006

 

What

is the current status of the mandate?

Today, approximately

4/5th of the Central Govt offices across the country have provided

bilingual facility, while there are other departments, working towards the

deadline.

 

The

department of official languages, with the help of C-DAC, Pune has

developed self-learning packages under the name of LILA. How do you

measure the success of the program?

The popularity of

Learn Indian Languages through Artificial Intelligence (LILA) language

software is proven by the number of mails we get in this regard. Besides,

the Department imparts training in Hindi computing. It is helping so many

skillful people overcome the phobia of computers. More than 80% people in

India depend on Hindi and other regional languages with all their

businesses being transacted in these languages. It is very important to

promote Hindi and other Regional languages for their benefit.

 

What

are the arrangements for imparting training?

With a view to impart

proper training for working in Hindi on computers, 100 training programs

were organized in offices during 2004-05. Training programs were organized

through NIC, C-DAC Noida, National Power Training Institute and CMC. At

the time of purchase of bilingual software, each office must arrange for

training their employees in bilingual software.

 

The

central Government has its own requirement for bilingual communication.

Does the same law apply to the states?




I should clarify, “The articles in part XVII and the schedule Eight of
the constitution are followed by the states to make their official

language acts, where they have to declare the use of at least one Indian

language for official purposes.”

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Stumbling Blocks



The slow growth of language software, in both the government and the

industry can be traced back to quite a few reasons. According to Raveesh,

Microsoft, “Earlier the Language applications market was highly fragmented and

de-focused, with different ISVs developing software following different encoding

schemes, leaving many users who were in a need to communicate, operating in

silos. This is the biggest reason why the Indian language software industry has

not seen major growth in its lifetime of existence.”

As Ajay Poddar, Artech

says, “ Data reusability and inter-portability were not seen as important

issues then. Today a significant percentage has shifted to the globally accepted

ISCII and Unicode standard, making language easily portable. Unicode currently

includes 13 scripts, which support 16 Indian languages.”

CDAC had spearheaded

the ISCII movement in India and went on to develop highly sophisticated software

for language computing, some available free of cost. According to Mahesh

Kulkarni, Group Co-ordiantor, Graphics and Intelligence Script Technology

(GIST), C-DAC, Poona, “E-governance initiatives can only succeed with Indian

languages. Though content is sparse and user knowledge has to be increased, Free

CD's and tools available from CDAC for non-commercial purposes, will act as a

catalyst to the whole process.” CDAC has approximately 60,000-65,000

registered users each of such free software for all the languages of Hindi,

Tamil, and Telgu.

As per the MAIT- Frost

and Sullivan study on the local language IT market in India there seem to be

more challenges than drivers. There is a lack of formal IT- based language

training among the users. For the government employee, the citizen sitting at

the Citizen Service Center or the common man who prefers using the computer at

home in Hindi, there is an absence of familiarity of user interface. In most

cases users do not even know that the Indian language software exists.

Future Scenerio



The newspaper reading population of our country is the direct reflection of

the potential language software base of our country. According to a recent Top

10 newspapers survey, English dailies of the pie captured 55-lakh readership,

there were 41 lakh readers of Hindi newspapers, while there were another 40 lakh

readers of regional language newspapers (Bengali, Gujrati, Telgu, Malayalam).

This is an identified, essentially large literate group, which would like to use

regional language applications.

E-Governance aims to

empower citizens, but how many from the above estimated numbers would have the

right kind of empowerment at the click of the mouse. Local Language Computing in

government departments and NGO's, translate to a more transparent and citizen

friendly governance. Undoubtedly, the right propagation and encouragement to

these services currently available would go a long way in making IT, Indian

friendly.

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