Re: [Indic-computing-devel] .ANARCHY OF KANNADA STANDARDS IN IT

[Harsha K.M. <kmh...@ho...>]

RE - ANARCHY OF KANNADA STANDARDS IN IT

Hi All,

I would like to comment on the mail sent by Mr. N. ANBARASAN. and I hope my
answers will help him in understanding the Standards Approved by Govt. Of
Karnataka.
Comments are welcome.


> It is this annoying trick which is being followed by the 'Specific Group'
for Kannada in standardising and developing NUDI for Kannada while blaming
the developers. Why this 'Specific Group' never >attempted to invent a
technology to handle Kannada efficiently using ISCII on computers for the
off-the-shelf applications. I leave it to your guess and further pacifying.

Why you people never attempted to invent a technology to handle Tamil
efficiently using ISCII ? and why are you people using TSCII ?

> Later on, when the Specific Group reached the peak of confusion, came out
with another altogether different set of character set as Kannada Standard
Code for Language Processing. Strangely, the >arguable special symbol for
'r' is left out in this character set. If KSCLP code set is meant for
Language processing, then what else the other encodings ISCII/UNICODE etc.,
do. Does it mean that the >Group is not aware of the sorting problems when
they submitted the recommendation. Why the Government is insisting on
SORTING order as per ISCII when KGP is allowed to do sorting based on
>KSCLP. Is it not a malpractice recommending two different standards based
on altogether different principle and use it for self advantage. Are they
not misleading the Kannada people, people of >Karnataka and the Government
of Karnataka. If Character encoding (KSCLP) is the most suitable for Kannada
Language processing, why the same was not recommended for Unicode. Is it not
a >wonder ?

We have never came out with confusion, instead we are still using ISCII for
storage in Nudi to maintain the National standards, where as design of ISCII
never solves the sorting problems of Kannada so for sorting, searching and
other language processing we are using  KSCLP as the INTERMEDIET CODE. and
also as the govt. standard says "WE CAN NOT CHANGE OUR LANGUAGE RULES TO
SUITE THE TECHNOLOGY, INSTEAD TECHNOLOGY HAS TO BE CHANGED TO SUIT THE
LANGUAGE" and KSCLP is the best example for this. its true that KSCLP is
most suitable for Kannada language processing, but since "wrong standards
which were in ISCII, is also copied to Unicode" ( Its Realy a wonder ) and
now consortium cannot modify the previous standard, the KSCLP recommended by
KGP is not accepted by Unicode consortium.

> Let me focus on, how ambiguously they interpret the Language, which
resulted in today's anarchy. Leave alone the complexities of script
composition, Kannada has one special interpretation of consonant >'r' as in
Karnataka when written in Kannada. Which is a most commonly used form of
'r'. The so called experts, instead of handling the complexity of 'r' in the
software have introduced it as one of the >symbol in the standards announced
for Kannada Keyboard (reference Karnataka G.O sa am ka e 70 kaa 99 dated
4-2-1999). In this standard, 47 necessary Kannada characters and 4 symbols
are listed >for modern Kannada language issued by the secretariat of Kannada
and Culture.

The keyboard layout is designed by our experts is to suit all sorts of end
users such as the users who are familier with using the Kanglish keyboard in
Baraha, Typewriter users, KP Rao layout users, and the DOE layout users.
After a discussion it is found that
DOE layout is most horrible which is very difficult to learn and the number
of keystrokes are more.
Kanglish layout in Baraha is offcource easy for Kanglish users but it will
be difficult for the users who dont know english, ( A user has to learn
english to work with Kannada software Baraha ) and offcource it is not a
Kannada keyboard layout its a standard English Keyboard.
KP Rao layout is most suitable to all ( Even for those who are using
Baraha ) and is very easy to lean ( Its proved ).
So KGP finaly came out with KP Rao Keyboard layout with some some small
changes which were recomonded by expers.

> Can any one list out the ten features that KGP has provided with NUDI as
claimed by the Specific Group. NUDI, purported to be the benchmark software
has been developed with non-standard fonts >like English numerals,
bi-lingual fonts, No conversion utilities.

Font with English numerals can not be a non standard font since portabality
will be there. It is just provided for the convience of user.
When talking about Nudi  its not a full fledged word Processor. It is a
Keyboard driver which works for layout specified by Govt. Of Karnataka, and
some fonts with Govt standards.
Nudi ( Latest is 3.0 Release 2 ) comes with many features as fallows.
- Sorting is provided as per the "Kannada Sahitya" which is there in none of
other Kannada Softwares which were only developed for DTP operators.
- SDK is provided with conversion functions from and to all types of codes
like KSCLP, ISCII, Bi-Lingual Glyph, Monolinugual glyph, in-built keyboard
engine which can be used by any developers to develop Kannada applications
"which are not only meant for DTP operators".
-Template files given for MS-Word and MS-Excel ( available in Release 2 )
which allows to sort search and to use many other features which are
available in MS-Word, MS-Excel.


Kannada was a victim of jealousy Kannada Software developers who developed
keyboard drivers with some ( Beautiful fontS ) just to attract DTP operators
and make money they were never thought of developing some standards for
glyph and storage ( if they do this  they will loose customers ).
Now there game is end!.
THANK GOD FINALLY SOME STANDARDS HAS COME.
I wish Kannada with its outstanding 2300 years of survival and very rich
literary contribution has to face this challenge and and support standards
provided by Govt. Of. Karnataka.
With my everlasting love and creed towards Kannada I welcome your comments
on this subject.

Harsha Kodnad
Software Engineer
Kannada Ganaka Parishat.,
Gokale Inst. of Public Afairs,
N. R. Colony,
Bangalore.
+91-80-6615972
kmh...@ho...