[Commons-Law] LAUNCH OF FREE HINDI SOFTWARE TOOLS AND FONTS BY DIT

Sun Jun 19 10:35:24 IST 2005

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Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 14:32:02 -0000
    From: Sameer Sachdeva <sachdeva_sameer at yahoo.co.in>
Reply-To: India-egov at yahoogroups.com
 Subject: [India-egov] LAUNCH OF FREE HINDI SOFTWARE TOOLS AND FONTS BY DIT
      To: India-egov at yahoogroups.com

Saturday, June 18, 2005
 Ministry of Communications & Information Technology

 LAUNCH OF FREE HINDI SOFTWARE TOOLS AND FONTS BY DIT
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 15:22 IST
As a landmark in the series of release of Software Tools and Fonts
in various Indian languages that are contemplated, the Department of
Information Technology (DIT), will make available free tools and
fonts to the public distribution upon registration on the designated
website.   Keeping in view the far reaching initiative of the DIT as
also  to bring about Language Computing technology revolution in the
country, Smt. Sonia Gandhi,  Chairperson, National Advisory Council
will launch release of Free CD containing rich collection of Hindi
Software Tools and Fonts to the public on Monday, here in the
presence of Shri Dayanidhi Maran, Minister of Communications &
Information Technology and Dr. Shakeel Ahmad, Minister of State for
Communications & Information Technology. Smt. Gandhi will also launch
the website which would provide  free distribution on-line, upon
registration by the net surfer at the designated website.   The
contents of  the free CD include the following software and their
contributors also:

·        Hindi Language True Type Fonts with Keyboard Driver

- C-DAC, Modular Infotech, Cyber Scape Multimedia, C.K. Technogies
and Softview

·        Hindi Language Multifont Keyboard Engine for True Type Fonts

- Cyber Scape Multimedia

·        Hindi Language Unicode Compliant Open Type Fonts

- C-DAC, Modular Infotech, Cyber Scape, CAD Graf Digital System Ltd.

·        Hindi Language Unicode Compliant Keyboard Driver

- C-DAC

·        Generic Fonts Code and Storage Code Converter for Hindi

- Priya Infomatech

·        Hindi Language Version of Bharateeya OO.o (Open Source)

- C-DAC

·        Firefox  Browser in Hindi

- C-DAC

·        GAIM  Multi Protocol Messenger in Hindi

- C-DAC

·        Columba  Email Client in Hindi

- C-DAC

·        Hindi OCR

- C-DAC

·        Aasaan Typing Tutor for Hindi & English

- C.K. Technologies

·        Integrated Word Processor

- C-DAC

·        Dictionary English-Hindi

- C-DAC

·        Hindi Language Spell Checker

- C-DAC

·        Hindi Language Transliteration Tool

- C-DAC

·        Hindi Language Text to Speech System

- IIIT, Hyderabad, Prologix, Lucknow

·        Translation support system from English to Hindi through the
website

- IIT, Kanpur

·        Hindi Language Corpora over the website

- C-DAC

India is a unique multilingual country in the world with 22
constitutionally recognized languages and 1650 dialects. Of the
languages, Hindi  spoken by a large population and as the official
language - has a unique place. It is a language spoken in most states
in northern and central India and is an Indo-European language, of
the Indo-Aryan subfamily. Evolving from the Middle Indo-Aryan prakrit
languages of the middle ages, and indirectly, from Sanskrit, Hindi
derives a lot of its higher vocabulary from Sanskrit as well as a
large number of words borrowed from Persian, Arabic and Turkish.

Hindi is the second most spoken language in the world, after Chinese.
Around 500 million people speak Hindi in India and abroad, and the
total number of people who can understand the language is estimated
to be around 800 million. According to a survey in 1997, 66% of all
Indians can speak Hindi, and 77% of Indians regard Hindi as "one
language across the nation". More than 180 million people in India
regard Hindi as their mother tongue. Another 300 million use it as a
second language.

Use of computers in Indian languages is not new. Early emergence of
tools, products and use in media date back to 80's. But widespread
impact has been far too less and the market growth momentum
inadequate. In this context, Department of Information Technology
(DIT), Government of India thought it fit to commence a "language
computing initiative" through the setting up of a committee in
November, 2004. One of its early decisions was to aggregate "tools
and fonts" from public and private players and release them
for "free" public use creating a tremendous kick-start and momentum
to the initiative.

The work on Indian language computing is being carried out since the
last two decades for a variety of tasks, including data processing,
word processing, desk-top publishing and so on, on different
platforms and operating systems. As less than 5% of the Indian
population understands English, it becomes important to develop tools
and software in Indian Languages for use by the larger section of
people. Information technology in India has economic, developmental
as well as social roles. In its economic role, it is a problem
solving tool which through computing and information processing has a
multiplier effect on the productivity of other sectors besides
creation of employment and wealth creation from its own industry.

C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing) is an autonomous
scientific society under the Administrative Control of Department of
Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & Information
Technology. Known for its PARAM series of supercomputers built since
its inception in 1988, it has also been a pioneer in R&D, standards
promotion, products development and deployment in language computing
arena. In this initiative, it is partnered by a number of public
(academia, R&D labs) and private players under the patronage of
DIT.

RM/AMA-180605 CD-Curtain Raiser

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