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FREE
FONT FOR MALAYALAM
Efforts
are on to spread the use of ICT among the Malayalees, with
support from the Free Software Movement. The Asia Pacific
Development Information Programme (APDIP), linked to the UNDP,
is supporting this initiative.
Today, some basic software is freely available over the Internet.
But it doesn’t support the fonts in Malayalam, the language
of more than 30 million people from the south-Indian state
of Kerala and at least another 10 million spread across the
globe.
This project also aims to create a Free Font for Malayalam,
toolkits (toolkits are basic building blocks in creating Graphical
User Interface based applications) that support Malayalam,
and localised desktop and office productivity applications
and documentation. As of now, Malayalam-enabled software is
scarce. Except for word processing, computers are currently
used as an electronic typewriter and for publishing.
Among the chief reasons for this is the lack of operating
systems supporting Malayalam. Secondly, the Malayalam font
system for the global standard the Unicode has not been developed
as yet. As a result, it is not possible to have an ICT infrastructure
that supports Malayalam. Another equally important reason
is the highly prohibitive cost of proprietary software.
This project is being implemented by the Kerala Bureau of
Industrial Promotion (K-BIP) in conjunction with the US-based
Free Software Foundation (FSF), founded by Richard Stallman
in 1984.
FSF argues that all software should be freely available. According
to them, software is information and withholding information
is a denial of human rights. The first FSF Chapter in India
was incidentally started in Trivandrum, Kerala. Check out
the website at www.apdip.net/news/
malayalam/index.htm. For further details, contact Ajay Kumar,
secretary to the Government of Kerala, Industries department.
E-mail: kumarajay1111@yahoo.com
ICT
SOLUTION FOR FISHERMEN
The Financial Express reports from Hyderabad that the Indian
National Centre of Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) has
signed an agreement with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to
develop an online solution aimed at offering Web-based services
for fishermen.
“This
five-year partnership covers the development of a Web-based
multilingual online solution that will allow the user community
to visualise and download a variety of ocean information and
advisory services. Information kiosks will be set up along
the coastline to help about six million fishermen in the country.
TCS will be hosting the solution in the next 12 months,”
says Dr K Radhakrishnan, director, INCOIS.
WANTED:
JAVA VOLUNTEERS
“If
you know Java, Tarahaat needs your help for their multilingual
software project,” proclaims a newsletter by TEN (Technology
Empowerment Network) a global network of organisations and
individuals whose purpose is to identify, support and empower
projects that contribute to improving the state of the world.
Tarahaat’s aim is to build stronger and more independent
communities in India through its marketplace technology.
For a project like this, an Indian language interface is essential.
However, the high licensing cost of proprietary software and
language technologies, makes it unaffordable to local entrepreneurs.
The obvious solution is to use open source software, but support
for Indian languages on the Linux platform is poor. That’s
where TEN and “you” come in.
The two main objectives of this exercise are:
-
To build an open source (GPL), Java applet to serve as a
multi-platform, multilingual input/output interface for
Web applications in Indian languages. This applet must provide
a method to translate between font-code and Unicode
-
To build a WYSIWYG HTML editor using the above applet to
support data entry via touch screen, keyboard, phonetic
script and ISCII (Indian Script Code for Information Interchange).
If you can help provide any programming, analytical and development
skills to support Tarahaat’s existing team, contact Ulla
Skiden, director, TEN. For further details go to www.techempower.net
LANGUAGE
RESOURCES FOR MACHINE TRANSLATION
Language Technologies Research Centre recently announced LRMT-2002,
a workshop for developing language resources for machine translation.
It will be held from June 17 to July 6 this year, at IIIT,
Hyderabad.
Say the organisers, “For an information revolution to
take place, data must be made available to the common man
in local languages.”
Machine translation (MT) systems need to be developed so that
information in one language becomes available in another language.
There is a large amount of electronic text in English, pertaining
to various branches of knowledge, which needs to be translated
to Indian languages. These systems have the potential to make
texts in English accessible to people who know only Indian
languages.
For building machine translation systems, appropriate language
resources need to be developed. The focus of this workshop
would be on building such languages resources, specifically,
on development and use of word sense disambiguation, transfer
lexicon and grammar, and aligned and tagged parallel corpora.
Primarily, the workshop is designed for linguists, language
scholars and Sanskrit scholars interested in developing computational
language resources for use in MT systems. Some selected computer
scientists and statistics researchers will also be admitted.
E-mail
contact: ltrc@iiit.net
TONGUE TO TALK:
MALAYALAM
Want
to learn Malayalam? This CD promises to teach you just that.
Vidyarambham Malayalam Tutor CD is priced at Rs 900 ($22.50)
but is currently being offered at Rs 600. Check it out at
www.
vidhyarambham.com/
For
additional information log on to www.allenparkin
fotech.com
VOGRAM
MESSAGES FOR RURAL INDIA
VoGram
is a new technology that holds promise in India. VoGram is
an operator-assisted voice messaging system that provides
a language independent, computer-free, voice messaging system
for users in rural and urban India. The caller has to inform
the operator whether the recipient should be intimated via
phone or through a printed notice, which will be hand delivered.
The caller is then prompted by the VoGram server to leave
a voice message (up to a minute long), which in turn is digitised,
compressed and sent off as an e-mail attachment to the VoGram
centre closest to the recipient.
“The
recipient is given a password. He can call up and listen to
the message once the password has been clarified. The sender
can also keep track of the status of his message by calling
up the VoGram centre from where he sent the message,”
explains Anurag Kumar, professor and associate chairman of
the Department of Electrical Communication Engineering, IISc,
Bangalore. E-mail contact: anurag@ece.iisc.ernet.in. Access
the VoGram website at ece.iisc.ernet.in/vogram/
TECHNOLOGY
TO FIGHT LEARNING-BARRIERS
KnowNet-Grin
(Knowledge Network for Augmenting Grassroots Innovations)
is the brainchild of professor Anil Gupta, Indian Institute
of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA). This initiative, which is
in association with SRISTI (Society for Research and Initiatives
for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions), is an attempt
to reduce barriers to learning.
“While
working on the project we experimented on several aspects
in which we could apply technology for reducing barriers to
learning language, literacy and localism. At the same time
we experimented with various models in which we could expand
the electronic network. Some of the models, such as the ham
radio, were cost effective but others, like the VSAT were
expensive,” explains Vijay Pratap Singh. Contact him
at vijayp@sristi.org. Visit their site at www.sristi.org/knownetgrin.html
PROJECT
CLEARINGHOUSE
The
World Resources Institute, a think tank in Washington DC,
has developed a website dedicated to exploring creative business
approaches, public-private partnerships, and other sustainable
ways to bridge the global digital divide and create lasting
economic, social, and environmental benefits.
This is what’s on offer: If you or your organisation
has a suitable project, you can submit it online or the centre
can create a project capsule for you. Just send in your information
including a brief project description, date of commencement,
contact details, affiliated organisations, and any related
documents you’d like to have linked to your project capsule.
Central to the project is the Digital Dividend Project Clearinghouse.
Located at wriws1.digitaldividend.org/wri/app/index.jsp, the
Clearing-house serves as a fully searchable repository for
information and shared experience on digitally enabled projects,
providing services to the underprivileged populace of developing
countries. For further details go to www.digitaldividend.org
DRUG
DESIGN
Rajkumar
Buyya, a young Indian expat, recently developed a system that
supports service-oriented worldwide computing. It allows the
creation of an online computing marketplace. The system has
been used for running applications such as drug design. For
more details go to http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2001/091201/Tools_auto
mate_computer_sharing_091201.html
E-mail contact: raj@cs.mu.oz.au
SOFTWARE
FOR THE
TEMPLE
A national newspaper recently carried a report about Ganati
a temple management software, which aims to achieve greater
‘efficiency and transparency’ in various temple
functions.
Ganati will specifically address billing and accounting procedures,
documentation of hundi collections, inventory management of
utility articles, valuable ornaments, as well as stores maintenance
and purchases, HR functions and trust affairs as part of the
everyday temple procedures.
The software has already been implemented at the Sri Raghavendra
Swamy Mutt at Sanjaynagar.
CYBERCAFE
ON WHEELS
Scientists
at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, are working
on what they describe as ‘info-thela’, or cyber
cafe on wheels an IT-based innovation that is expected to
revolutionise the rural economy and boost output.
The idea is to provide battery-operated IT services on tricycles,
which can reach even the remotest of areas. The mobile cyber
cafe will enable villagers to get information about weather
forecasts, market rates of agricultural products and inputs
and even entertainment, all at one place and just by one click
of the mouse. For more information write to the Global Knowledge
for Development network at gkd@mail.edc.org
IT
FOR EYE-BANKS
Percy
Ghaswala of the Mumbai-based Ghaswala Vision Foundation, is
planning to e-enable eye banking. Initially, he hopes to deploy
his solution at a single eye bank, and then create a network
of other players. It is expected that IT will bring about
transparency in eye banking, which in India is controlled
by politicians, architects, lawyers, chartered accountants,
and ophthalmic surgeons with vested interest. In fact, anyone
except professional eye bankers trained for the purpose. Ghaswala,
who is on the faculty at the SEWA Roshni Eye Bank of Lilavati
Hospital & Research Centre in Mumbai can be contacted
at percy@ghaswalafoundation.org
SIMPUTER:
IN LINE FOR TAKING ORDERS
After
some despondency, now it’s time for optimism once again.
Sandi Morgan recently announced via the Simputer mailing list
that there are plans to accept orders for smaller quantities
of the indigenously developed low-cost Simputer. Earlier,
other firms in India said they were concentrating on large
orders at least 200 Simputer units since they lacked the infrastructure
needed for handling small orders. PicoPeta Simputers (www.picopeta.com)
is one of the firms working on the product within India. Morgan
can be contacted at smorgan@graffitiworkz.com
‘LITTLE’
BOOST
Three
cheers for IT for helping struggling ventures to get a wider
audience worldwide. One of the recent attempts to find a wider
voice on the Web came from ‘The Little Magazine’,
or TLM for short. Published from Delhi, this claims to be
south Asia’s “only professionally produced print
magazine devoted to essays, fiction, poetry, art and criticism.”
It also terms itself as the only publication to publish complete
film and theatre scripts, and with a special interest in translation.
IT and the Internet would hopefully give this venture a chance
to reach out to wider audiences. Check out the site at www.littlemag.com.
E-DESH,
BANGLADESH
Something
from beyond India’s borders, but very much in the South
Asian neighbourhood. It promises to be a “place where
Bangladeshi people all around the world read Bangladeshi news,
currents events in Dhaka and other cities, Bangla literature,
etc. It also includes other Bangladeshi Web resource addresses.
To access the site go to www.e-desh.com
India Computes! is presented by Frederick Noronha, the co-founder
of BytesForAll, a voluntary, unfunded venture focusing on
how IT and the Internet can benefit the common man, particularly
in South Asia. Join the BytesForAll mailing list by sending
a message to fred@bytesforall.org with “SUB B4ALL”
as subject, or check out the website at www.bytesforall.org.
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