From: Anay Joglekar <anay.joglekar@gmail.com>
Dear Jimmy Wales,
ORF Research Report: ICT for Maharashtra, ICT through Marathi
Summery
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are transforming our world in revolutionary ways. However, the doors of the New World being created by ICT are mostly shut for a majority of the people in India. For at the signboards at its entrance is written: "English-speaking People Preferred." Those who speak only Marathi (and this is true for other native Indian languages, too) cannot (by default and easily) use computer and mobile phones in Marathi or send email and sms in Marathi. There is very little useful information in Marathi on the Internet, even though it offers an ocean of information in English. Ironically, the much-trumpeted e-Governance measures have remained mostly English-Governance initiatives. Thus, the linguistic divide is further deepening the Digital Divide in Maharashtra and the rest of India. This has also created a mortal threat to the future ofMarathi and other Indian languages, since the young generation has come to believe that learning in Marathi is useless and English education alone provides the passport to prosperity.
The Observer Research Foundation Mumbai believes that this situation of exclusive development is unacceptable. Maharashtra, which is celebrating its golden jubilee year, must take determined steps to secure for Marathi an honoured placed in the ICT Revolution. Hence we published “महाराष्ट्रासाठी माहिती तंत्रज्ञान, मराठीतून माहिती तंत्रज्ञान” (ICT for Maharashtra, ICT through Marathi) report along with Marathi Abhyas Kendra.
The report describes how other countries in the world, such as Israel, China, Japan and Korea have developed ICT in there own languages, thereby achieving phenomenal results. It shows promotion of ICT in Marathi can create employment, self-employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for Marathi-speaking people on a large scale, both in urban and in rural areas, besides bridging regional disparities in the state. It calls for a big boost to be given to e-education, telemedicine, e-banking, e-commerce, ICT-assisted agriculture and e-justice throughMarathi. E-Governance in Marathi can bring government closer to the common people, and make it transparent and accountable. Most importantly, ICT in Marathi can help protect and further enrich Maharashtra’s priceless heritage of arts, culture, literature, cinema, and endangered folk traditions.
To realize this vision, the report urges the Government to (a) ensure affordable broadband connectivity, with speeds comparable to the highest in the world, in every corner of the state; (b) make it compulsory for computer and mobile companies to make their products and services Marathi-compatible; (c) universalize use of Unicode Marathi, beginning with its introduction in all official communication and websites; (d) incentivise digital content creation in Marathi on a massive scale; and (e) give special focus to bring Marathi-speaking youth women, SC/STs, OBCs and other weaker sections of society within the ambit of ICT Revolution.
In short, promotion of ICT in Marathi is indispensable for the all-round, accelerated and inclusive development of Maharashtra. Can we aim for anything less in the Golden Jubilee Year of the state?
Important announcements made by the chief minister while inaugurating the ORF Report –
1. Government to allocate Rs. 10 million for digitization of copyright free literature, manuscripts and important documents.
2. Government will make 18 volumes of Marathi Encyclopedia available on the internet in Unicode text format.
3. Government will make sure that In-script (bi-lingual) keyboards will be easily available everywhere in the state.
4. All the websites of the Government of Maharashtra will be made available in Unicode Marathi.
5. Promised to call a meeting of representatives of leading ICT companies and asked ORF to decide agenda for localization in Marathi.
Some Quick Facts/Points –
1. Total Telephone subscriber base reached to 706.37 Million (Wireless 670.60 + Wireline 35.77)
2. Broadband subscription is 10.08 million. TRAI Report Aug 2010
3. Peak connection speed – 4.7 mbps (0.5%), Above 2 mbps speed (4.3%) average connection speed – 800 kbps, Below 256 kbps (30%) AKMAI Q2
4. Internet Users – Claimed – 71 million, Active users 52 million (use internet more than once a month) and Users aware of vernacular content 13 million IAMAI Vernacular Content Report 2009
5. Rural Internet Users – 6.46 million, Active Users – 4.18 million (Rural Population: > 750 million)
6. Times of India (World’s highest circulated English newspaper) ranks 8th among top 10 Indian Newspapers (readership). Other 9 are Indian languages. Same is true about television viewership in India. Out of around 250 TV channels, most popular channels are in Indian languages.
7. On the other hand when it comes to Wikipedia pages – Hindi(57,287), Marathi(31,400), Bengali (21886), Tamil (25,627) against 3.4 million pages in English, 1.13 million in German, 1.01 million in French – Even Hebrew has 1,10,364 pages.
Making keying of Indic content default, easy and in standardized form will take few more years. Therefore we believe that Wikipedia India shall collaborate with governments, publishers and other institutions which have large volumes of textual resources, copyrights free and suitable for encyclopedia projects and make it available on the internet and organizations like ORF which share this agenda. It will create greater awareness among Netizens in India about vernacular content and will encourage them to edit and add new content.