Hi,

Thanks a lot Nitin, Pravin, Chandan!

Nitin jee, I appreciate your efforts and am having same emotion when language issues come. Popularizing inscript and using it as a standard is important for the success. And as far as I know lot of efforts are being started.

For Marathi, when we will organize some events, hopefully in near future, we will write about the same on this mailing list as well.
Please register for the event. Thanks for your interest to participate in the such initiative.

--
Regards,
Rajesh


On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 7:00 PM, Nitin Nimkar <nvncom@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hi All,

I am glad to know about the initiative. Thank you Mr. Rajesh Ranjan for keeping informed about these developments.  I would like to participate in future such initiatives. 

To inform you about myself, I am a trustee of an NGO active in the field of primary education.  I have been helping them to use IT technology in their educational initiatives. The NGO's website is bi lingual in Marathi and English. We are running an online forum for teachers, particularly primary teachers from all over Maharashtra. The Forum is run in Marathi. We also offer e-learning to the teacher students all in Marathi. All URLs are at the bottom after my signature. 

I think in all this process, I have gained some insight in the whole process of using IT in Indian languages. 

I think the most important and critical skill needed at user end is not of IT but is of Typing in Indian languages. Here I would like to point out that all of us who are involved in IT and localization are bi lingual in English and Marathi or any other Indian language, and therefore are comfortable using English QWERTY Keyboard for both English and Indian languages. Therefore we think that a transliteration method is just the best way of inputting info in Indian languages. However, my experience in running above mentioned forum and e learning initiative tells me that INSCRIPT is the best method of inputting content in Indian Languages. That is the most comfortable solution for those who only speak Indian Language. I think this is the single most reason why all efforts to update content in Indian Languages fail.  

When we are talking about Unicode, standardisation, etc.  we should also give equal importance to the standardization of INSCRIPT Typing across the state/Nation. Here, I would like to point out that QWERTY keyboard for English has a history of 135 years. An attempt by DOVARK key board which comes in all Windows edition could not replace QWERTY for English. However, this isn't the case for Indian Languages. We have 8 keyboards in Marathi, and those are creating havoc. 

I am aware about the initiative by C-Dac of offering various keyboard drivers in one application for those who resist to change. This is something similar  like Indic IME. This could be a temporarily solution, but I think we should make determined efforts to standardise INSCRIPT keyboard, for which a driver comes along with all flavours of operating systems. 

We should embark upon a state wide and a Nation Wide Training and Certification program  in INSCRIPT for Government Employees, Teachers, professors in Universities, students and for all those who are involved with Indian Languages.  Let us ignore the present employees who are resisting to change from earlier keyboards. But let us not leave this as a loose end.  My experience with the students and teachers is very much encouraging.  The students, teachers and those who do not have a baggage of non INSRIPT keyboard learn the basic typing skills in just 15 to 20 days with a practice of 1 hour daily. So it is a question of only 15 to 20 hours for a learner. 

I have taken initiative at personal level to teach INSCRIPT typing to all those who are involved with our websites, e learning initiatives. However, if we can reach to other sections of the society with the help of C-Dac or Red Hat and Government, we can change the situation. I think I will be of some help with this initiative. 

On  a lighter note, I would like to inform you all that, I read yesterday in a news paper that Kabir Khan, director in Bollywood, told media that Katrina Kaif is the only actress who needs Hindi script in Devanagari, because she has learned Hindi that way. But to get those script typed in Devanagri is a hell of a job for Bollywood, because there are not many who can type in Devanagari efficiently. Can we change this situation?

Nitin Nimkar

http://www.quest.org.in
http://forum.quest.org.in
http://elearning.quest.org.in




From: Rajesh Ranjan <rajesh672@gmail.com>
To: fuel-discuss@lists.fedorahosted.org
Sent: Monday, August 6, 2012 4:27 PM

Subject: FUEL Becomes Integral Part of e-Gov Standard vide CoE Marathi

Hi,

I am pleased to share with you that Government of Maharashtra has decided to go with FUEL [1] as one of the linguistic standard(s) for e-Governance. On Saturday August 4, 2012; CoE (Center of Excellence) Marathi [2] workshop was organized by C-DAC GIST at Mantralaya, Mumbai, Maharashtra State. Mr. Rajesh Aggarwal, Principal Secretary Department of IT, Govt. of Maharashtra and Mr. Mahesh Kulkarni, Programme Co-ordinator, GIST, C-DAC along with representatives from various IT companies were present at the workshop. Agenda for the workshop is here [3].

Mr. Rajesh Aggarwal discussed in detail about the significance of standardization and importance of all government website(s) to be in native (as primary language) and English (as secondary language). He emphasized that linguistic content of public use need to be licensed under Copyleft [4].

Mr Mahesh Kulkarni elaborated on "Standards - importance, issues, challenges & solution". During his presentation, he focused on Unicode, INSCRIPT, Open Font format, searching, sorting, database, issues in Marathi localization, FUEL, CLDR, Script Grammar, etc. Speaking about FUEL, he highlighted FUEL terminology, Style Guide, Assessment Method(s), FUEL project road-map, etc.The FUEL terminology for Marathi is available for download [5] on CoE website. 

Later a team of language experts discussed about FUEL-mobile and FUEL-web terminology (Marathi). Team decided to meet at the earliest and finalize them. Towards the end of the workshop, the outcome of discussion with language experts regarding FUEL mobile and web module(s) was delivered to the audience by Mr. Chandrakant D (GIST, C-DAC) and myself.

The workshop concluded with Mr Rajesh Aggarwal and Mr Mahesh Kulkarni providing an action plan to make the Centre of Excellence for Marathi successful.

Centre of Excellence for Marathi is setup to boost e-governance initiative of govt of Maharashtra[6].

I am thankful to Mr Rajesh Aggarwal and Mr Mahesh Kulkarni for supporting FUEL. Thanks a lot to Prof Anil Gore, Chandrakant D, Sandeep Shedmake, Damodar Magdum along with representatives of mahaonline and all the language group presents there to make the language related discussion vibrant.

[1]. http://www.fuelproject.org ; https://fedorahosted.org/fuel
[2]. http://coe.maharashtra.gov.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47
[3]. https://fedorahosted.org/fuel/raw-attachment/wiki/fuel-marathi/coe-workshop-agenda-marathi.pdf
[4]. www.gnu.org/copyleft
[5]. http://coe.maharashtra.gov.in/material/FrequentlyusedentriesforLocalization.pdf
[6]. http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/states/article3639047.ece

--
Regards,
Rajesh Ranjan
www.rajeshranjan.in

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