Surabhi Agarwal
The Financial Express
India may be the Silicon Valley of the outsourcing world, but the country’s IT penetration is an abysmal 2.5%. Language computing is seen as a key handicap in digital inclusion in India where just over 10% people speak English; while close to 40% speak Hindi.
Overcoming the barrier to language computing might be a daunting task, but it is achievable. For, hope is around the corner with several IT giants, including Microsoft, Oracle and IBM, along with the state-owned Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) working overtime to overcome this handicap.
For one, Microsoft has remained steadfast in its focus in this space for the last ten years. Recently, the company announced several initiatives in this field. It unveiled the beta version of its operating system, Windows 7 in Hindi. It also showcased Language Interface Packs (LIPs) in 12 Indian languages—Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati,
Gurmukhi, Hindi, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Tamil and Telugu—for MS Office & Windows. A total of 45 additional soft (virtual) keyboards, which are free to download, are also available in these 12 languages.
In addition, Windows Live, which includes email, Instant Messenger, online storage, photo gallery, social networking, calendar, online storage, personal home page, and more, has also been made available in seven Indian languages. The languages are Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu.
Then, in Microsoft’s yet another significant initiative to reach out to Indian developers, the Captions Language Interface Pack (or CLIP) has been launched for Hindi, Malayalam, Oriya, and Tamil. CLIP is a tool that uses a tooltip caption to display translations for user interface items in Visual Studio 2008. This is the first time that Microsoft has released a tool specifically to help students and beginner developers in India use the product in their own language.
These are just some of the initiatives that Microsoft has taken to bridge India’s digital divide. “We are working towards localising more applications in the future. More investment will be put into this space,” says Meghashyam Karanam, product manager, visio and localisation, Microsoft India.
Similarly, IBM too is active in this space and has developed a host of offerings in Indian languages. These include Shrutlekhan-Rajbhasha, a speech recognition technology in Hindi with C-DAC. It also has a Hindi version of its messaging software Lotus Notes. Another software giant Oracle has launched Database 10g which supports transactions and interfaces in 13 major Indian languages, including Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Telugu and Tamil.
However, C-DAC continues to be the front-runner in this space with a number of products across various levels of the chain. To increase the IT penetration, C-DAC is making available software tools and fonts in Indian languages for free through CDs and Web downloads. It is also adding four more languages—Mythali, Bodo, Dogri and Nepali to its portfolio.
Notwithstanding these bold initiatives, there is a widespread feeling that the spread of language computing, along with its widespread reach is still plagued by the lack of a comprehensive action plan. In this backdrop, it is the $4 billion National e-governance Plan (NeGP) of the government, which is being hailed as a tide-turner by the industry.
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