Jnana - pure knowledge

[ I am still using proxies to access blogspot. So I have designed this logo and decided to carry it in all my future posts as a mark of protest till VSNL gives me the reason for blocking or removes the blockade. ]

“For me it is a matter of pride to see my language on web” thundered a Professor when internationalization (i18n) and localization (l10n) were being discussed in Indian context. I think that sums up the reason why we need l10n and i18n here. But we are failing to understand the complexities of things. Here I try to present some of my concerns regarding these issues.

As I remember there was a survey done by IIIT Hyderabad (I am not sure whether it was Hyderabad or Bangalore) about the market for Indian language software. This was in 1999. It concluded that the market was so small that commercial players may not be interested in that. The reason quoted was huge investment needed for research & efforts for standardization, font rendering etc.

And it is not that standards were not present then. ISCII was prevalent at that time and it had provided standards for representation of several Indian languages. But even then there were not many takers for Indian language software except perhaps the DTP guys and universities engaged in linguistic studies.

Compared to those days, today we have a host of Indian language solutions floating around. Though word processors (and generally the office suites) are found more than any other class of software, somewhere the wheel has stated moving. Does this mean there is a new market now for these things?

I would love to think so. Because of explosion in Indian media combined with increasing access to Internet, the demand for representing content in Indian languages is rising. And there is small market out there for Indian languages in mobile phones. I am pretty sure this one will grow in coming days.

It is true that Indian language computing does not come anywhere near the market for English. And this is the reason I often hear from private players when asked about their interest in Indian language software. But that does not mean that there is NO market at all. There is an intuitive feeling in me that this is similar to “rail paradox”.

For uninitiated, railway paradox is described thus. The people of a town appealed to railways to stop the train in their station. Railways sent a team to study whether people were really waiting for that train in the station. Now since the train was not stopping there, there were no waiters. And since there was no one waiting, the railways decided not to stop the train there.

This is how we are dealing with Indian language computing. Like the people in the town, even we are waiting for language tools. And software companies are behaving like railways and claiming that there is no market. I know of a few companies in Bangalore who work extensively in foreign languages. But they don’t seem to care much about our languages.

But there are some organizations which are obligated to try out these things. For example NIC has done some good work in automating land records. Now it is focusing on land registration. They have made it a point to introduce local language in their solutions. Some other government portals are also available in Indian languages.

For a long time local language computing has been taken up by research agencies, universities or interested user groups and sometimes even motivated individuals. And this model has worked most times. Some of the tools we have today for Kannada did not come by organized development (except NUDI) but from motivated individuals or groups.

But as with any unmanaged activity, Indian language computing has suffered with problems. The key areas of concern are – interoperability and continued support. Largely the problem could be traced to lack of suitable standards in critical areas like encoding and rendering.

UNICODE has partially solved the problem. Even I had first hand experience with using UNICODE for Kannada. When I first started writing my Kannada blog, I was using NUDI fonts (since NUDI had govt. stamp). But then I discovered that UNICODE was far better option. And now I am pretty happy with it but issues remain.

I want to give an example. The first letter of my name is transliterated as “kRu” in Baraha. But when the use the “Baraha Direct”, I cannot do this. In fact combinational keys are not easy to come in Direct. The problem is not only of Baraha but has to do partially with browsers and W3C standards also.

I do not want to discuss these technical issues here. The policies and processes for making Indian languages available on net are already undertaken. W3C India, Dept of IT (Govt. of India) and lot of institutes like C-DAC and NIC are working on standardization required for these things.

There are many issues surrounding localization that are discussed these days but I take up one issue. That is providing domain names in Indian languages. Now I have understood that this will be possibility in near future, I am expressing my concerns regarding this. Hope these issues will be resolved in coming days.

My first question is whether in future we can see a complete Indian www? That is whether I can write the complete URL (including http://www) in local language? Or is it that I enter only the domain name in Kannada but enter www and http in English? If it is the later, then sorry, I am not interested in that.

Let me explain why. We should first understand the need for Indian language domain names (iDN). I think the argument is that the people who do not know English should also be able to surf, so we need iDN. But see the catch – one has to enter http and www in English, use keyboard which has English alphabets, operated in a PC which has an OS with English rendering and we are talking of helping people who do not know English!

This argument for iDN is flawed. But that is not the only reason for me to take a tough stand. There is one more serious technical issue. Do you think “xyz.com”, “XyZ.com” & “xyZ.com” should be different websites? Are you thinking that I am a fool because every kid knows that case differences do not matter in URL?

But in Indian languages “rAma” and “rama” are different names. So when these two site names are registered, they should be separate. The ways to handle this is being worked out but the point I am making is there is a need for us to look at things differently. And there is a problem in having an input engine.

The support for iDN must come from many corners. The browser companies should do some changes. At present the space available for entering URL in most browsers are not sufficient for displaying the Indian scripts. So we need their support to do this and many such things.

Through a synergetic interaction between standardizing agencies and IT companies such things can be a possibility. But there are 2 more concerns I have about these localization efforts in general. This is not to say that I do not support these activities. Being a participant in some areas, I do contribute to these efforts in my own way. But I should spell out some itchy things that trouble me.

My linguistic identity is a thing I am proud about. I speak Tulu at home and consider Kodava equally close to me. Kannada is a language of my mind. Like many I use English in my profession. Tamil and Malayalam came to me through my surroundings. And Hindi and Sanskrit is what I learnt through formal training.

This is not my case alone. Lot many of them have such multiple linguistic identity. When Kannada gets its place on web I start thinking about Tulu and Kodava. Imagine someday even these languages get represented in web. You may say it is the matter of time this gets done since both these languages share Kannada script. And since Kannada scripts are available in UNICODE, the job is simpler.

But the issues are much deeper. There are words in Kannada and say Tulu which sound same (and written in same way) but mean different. If iDN’s becomes a reality and if everyone stakes claim for that, then we should know how to solve this issue. This is a technical issue and so somehow we can solve this but my next concern is philosophical.

Remember China and (somewhat partially) Japan had attempted something similar. They created “their own version” of www. The result was that they were left out from global view. They are (still) disconnected from main stream if you think the idea of www is seamless exchange of data across the globe.

I sometimes think whether we will also become “islands” of users in www disconnected from “global” www. Again this is just a speculation. I keep wondering what will happen if one day I am able to open my laptop and see everything in Kannada. Will the local www limit my knowledge bandwidth or be more useful since I comprehend more easily in Kannada?

When I posed this question to few people I received varied responses. One interesting possibility some one told me was the complete translation being in place. Extending the use of locale data, it is predicted that the www will someday look the way you want. So it no longer matters whether the site is in English or Spanish, it all appears to you in Kannada!!

We as technology evangelists have the habit of overestimating the technical leap in 10 years and underestimating its progress in say 2 years. The complete semantic, auto translator-enabled web may be far away but I do not think iDN needs time. There are reports that some companies (VeriSign??) are accepting domain names in some Indian languages.

So time is running out for us to finalize the standards (for input, rendering and related things) and get those standards accepted by all stakeholders (W3C, UNICODE, Browser developers, IT solution providers). There are also questions about the availability of development tools (for authoring, validating etc) in Indian languages.

India has 22 official languages and more than 1000 dialects. Accommodating everyone in the journey is an exiting challenge. Most of the languages have standardized their typefaces. But in few cases there is still ongoing debate (Konkani). As I see it there is no much hope of commercial software houses being involved in these things. This is still a research area and as usual the government agencies and academia may have to completely involve themselves in this interdisciplinary work.

But more than anything it is the pride of one’s language which will make individuals take up this challenge upfront. Earlier experiments in open source projects has proven that community based development (“bazaar model” according to Eric Raymond) can work efficiently compared to managed and centralized development (“cathedral model”). I do not see any reason why the same cannot happen with respect to Indian language computing.

[The blogspot is still in blocked state. It is very unfortunate to see VSNL not giving any explanation for the blockade. I wanted to restart writing only after the ban is removed. But there appears to be no hope. There is a sense of anger in me for not able to do anything regarding this.]

One fine day in Aug 1996 I had my first date with Computers. Though Computers was taught to us in school from 1991, I was not keen about that. Few of my friends were really hooked on it for playing games and that did not interest me. It was only after my 10’TH that I decided that I will continue with Computer.

My decision to take Computer in PUC was influenced more by my hatred towards Biology than my love towards Computer. From then it has been a wonderful journey with this machine. User, Programmer and now Teacher – I had the opportunity to interact with the machine in different roles. And being an insider to the Computer profession I think I can now comment on certain issues surrounding this.

PC has completed its 25 years in existence (Aug 12). To ask what Computers have done to us in these years can be stupid. Think of it! This industry has given us the richest man in the world, has provided employment to millions directly and lot more indirectly, has helped economy move upward and has created a generation which think world is really flat!

If you be a bit liberal and link Internet to PC revolution (though it is difficult to say whether PC fuelled Internet revolution or is it vice-versa) you can see that we have established a whole new world order. What India could not achieve in previous hundreds of years, Knowledge industry has managed in 2 decades. If an economic impact audit of IT on India is done, there is no doubt that the report card will have only A+.

Has IT managed to improve the living standards of Indians in general? Do they feel more empowered due to IT? There will be people who will answer in affirmative. After all, a whole new generation with huge disposable income is created, thanks to IT. If increasing number of sprawling malls, designer boutiques and other lifestyle stores are any indication, IT has created a paradise.

But forget not that only a tiny fraction of Indian population is enjoying all this. The impact of IT on general Indian public cannot be studied by looking at the huge bank balances of few people. We have to see how IT has touched the lives of common man here. And I dare to say that this audit, unlike the previous one, is not healthy.

So do I belong to that clan of activists who protested when IBM wanted to come to India in 80’s (that included George Fernandes)? No, I am not. I am simply taking a critical view of misses than hits that we managed. And maybe I am hoping that people will take some leads and try to fill the huge gaps that we have created down the years.

My first complaint about the Computer is that it has remained an elitist technology. You can turn cynical and say that all technologies basically try to create more bourgeoisie as witnessed by the history. As Marxists point out capitalist regime during Industrial revolution was possible because rich class could invest in technology. They used technology to amass wealth which was used in turn to exploit the proletariat. So the basis for social/class division though was based on wealth could also be traced to technology in some way.

Has Computer retained some of the capitalist traits associated generally with technology? Yes it appears, in some way. Take for example the exploitation of private players in the Computer education market. I myself have been a victim of one such institute in my younger days and so can comment on this with command. The stories of how these institutes made money based on media hype are now well known.

But unfortunately street corner shops continue to exploit people even today. It is a shame that Government has not taken any steps in regulating this area. In cities like Bangalore they loot gullible students who come from places across India with a hope of landing in an IT job. In fact brand Bangalore is so famous that I had seen a Computer center in Kolkota named as “Bangalore Computer Institute”!

In the absence of any effort by the Government to teach Computer to common man, these private institutes have a large role to play. That is the reason why they should be regulated, if possible through legislations. Their disregard for quality in teaching and infrastructure will prove a great stumbling block in carrying the knowledge (and thus the benefits) of IT to common man.

Second issue that concerns me is the lack of rules governing the Computer education at college level. There are at least 3 kinds of undergraduate programs (BE, BCA & B.Sc[Comp]) which teach similar subjects. The only differentiating factor is the fees you pay to these courses. Less spoken is better about the program labeled as MCA.

The utter carelessness of educationalists, governing bodies and state has resulted in making India (specifically southern India) a fertile breeding ground for IT professions sans quality. So when one NASSCOM survey reveals that only fraction of these are actually of employable quality, questions are raised.

The repercussions of long negligence can be seen now. With large number of seats in Engg colleges remaining unfilled (10,000 in TN this time) the future of engg education in this part of Vindhyas is not that encouraging. Add to this the squabble between management and the state every year and the ever increasing fees, you have perfect recipe for disaster.

The great dot com depression left some lessons behind it, but rarely has there been any serious attempt to study the failure model. People take solace under successful names often forgetting the fact that not more than 1/5’Th of companies survive in Bangalore for more than 3 years.

When top 5 companies eat up 80% of IT revenue in this country and when there are thousands of companies waiting for rest of the share you know there will be bitter fight for every tiny share in the pie. The result is cut-throat competition among companies which follow the mantra of “cost savings” meaning you get peanuts for your back breaking work. And what’s more – you dare not to put out your woes pubic for this is supposed to be hi-tech industry.

Before a few years I had undertaken a survey to understand the benefits common man has reaped through IT. I could locate 52 projects in all and the stories were great to listen. Several ones like BHOOMI, the showpiece IT project for Karnataka Government, e-Chowpal, MSSF Knowledge Centers raised some hope but they their impact has been very small. Compared to Satellite TV or even mobile phone, the reach of Computer in India is far from satisfactory.

But I keep wondering why any middle class household should invest in PC? I keep seeing the parents eyes glow when they say they want to buy their child a Computer so that he improves in studies. But alas! Who will tell them that their child will play more games and surf useless stuff using the Computer which his parents think is an instrument which will end their woes?

We are doing one more mistake here in India. We are once again failing to see the future. We caught the PC bus quite late and now we are failing to disembark from the falling bus. None other than Microsoft is accepting that the PC era is over. But Indian households are still busy exploring the merits of “Home PC”!!

Mobile computing, wireless broadband – the future is already here. But India is again caught napping. In computing yesterday is referred as Stone Age and last hour is industrial age. When technology is growing at maddening speed, it is difficult for any one to cope up. But there is no way out. You have to move with tide or get thrown away to some remote shore.

What we have not done is localization. I think we have been little too slow in localizing the operating system. A computer which can be operated as easily like a TV is still a dream. Though the cost factor is coming down the PC is not accepted. And development junta is not understating the simple reason behind this failure.

If TV becomes damn cheap will the people buy it unless they know they can see good programs? Definitely no. Similarly if Computer costs come down, it has to be supplemented with useful programs for people. And do we have them in plenty? – No. So why will anyone be interested in Computer.

Yes Internet is a reason but not anymore. You do not need a PC for accessing Internet. The days of PC as an Internet accessing device are ending. So what is the future for PC? There will come a day when the PC’s of today will end in museums and that day is not far.

I thought I should end this article with a high note by picking up someone who has used IT in India to reach the last man possible. And who will get that appreciation? None other than my favorite IT implementer – Indian Railways. It is they who have creatively used IT resources to achieve something which we as Indians can really be proud of.

Their story to me is far more important than any IT company because they reach so many people every day with efficiency that can claim to be in SIX SIGMA range. And what’s best about them? Their programs were not written by MNC’s but departmental guys who worked under the same red-tapism which we are fond of ridiculing at every drop of hat.

I earn my daily rice-sambar thanks to PC. And there are lakhs of people like me. For all of us life without PC is unthinkable. But we should look beyond the present uses and think of harnessing its power for the larger good.