[Indic-computing-users] Is this correct?

[Frederick N. (FN) <fr...@by...>]

URL             :  http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/ht
			ml/uncomp/articleshow?msid=185058

   Now, log in in any of 11 tongues 
 
   ABHIJIT MAJUMDER
   [spacer.gif]
   TIMES NEWS NETWORK [spacer.gif] [ TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2003 08:50:18
   PM ]

   MUMBAI: One of the world's most potent technology counter-cultures is
   sinking its hook deeper into the government of India, ironically an
   establishment long famous for resisting change.

   The government is releasing GNU/Linux, a computer platform that
   challenges the brute marketing might of Microsoft, in 11 Indian
   languages by the year-end.

   As part of Project Indix, the government has already released Linux in
   Hindi. While five more language releases is lined up for Thursday, the
   technology will be available in six more local languages in three or
   four months.

   The five languages lined up now are Sanskrit, Marathi, Malayalam,
   Tamil and Kannada.

   In the next few months, one can look forward to sending e-mails and
   re-inventing their desktops in Assamese, Oriya, Bengali, Gurmukhi,
   Gujarati and Telugu.

   The project, funded by the Ministry of Communication and Information
   Technology and running for two years, is being done by the National
   Centre for Software Technology (NCST), a government of India body.

   Earlier, NCST had designed the `Mangal' font in Hindi and presented it
   to Microsoft head Bill Gates.

   "The basic idea of the project is to enable this language support at
   the infrastructure level," says Deepraj Dixit, who is heading the
   project.

   "By shifting to open source, savings would be enormous. You don't have
   to invest in buying or upgrading software every year."

   Since Windows is a proprietary system, the government spends a huge
   amount buying and upgrading software for its offices. Already, an
   increasing number of government institutions and IITs use Linux as a
   platform.

   Government sources reckon that the new GNU/Linux platform would create
   opportunities for entrepreneurship. Also, Linux in local languages
   would break the English-difficulty barrier and take technology to the
   masses, they say.
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