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Kannada cross-connections?

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CIOL Bureau
New Update

Chinmayee S

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BANGALORE: Kannada Development Authority (KDA) and Kannada Ganaka Parishat (KGP) have developed a "standard" Kannada glyph, but this awaits acceptance from the Unicode consortium.



The Karnataka government has decided not to recognize Kannada software that does not comply with these standards and will not allow it to be used.

But controversies around "benchmark software Nudi" abound. The Nudi, is not based on the ISCII (Indian Script Code for Information Interchange). ISCII is the standard for Indian languages developed by the Department of Electronics and is used by C-DAC’s GIST technology and iLeap.

The makers of Nudi have ignored existing technologies such as GIST. "There is no point trying to reinvent the wheel", says Mohan Tambe, the founder of GIST. "GIST has created a common overlay for all Indian scripts."

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GIST Technology uses the Devanagari script. Prof B. Ramachandrappa, ex-President, KGP says "We reject the monopoly of English and Sanskrit (Devanagari) alike".

"But a standard that is accepted by a single state government does not serve the common good. For example, a land records software developed for one state could be used for all states (after making a few changes) if everybody followed ISCII. Moreover, Unicode recognition is very important".





"Nudi works very well on Windows. We have not implemented it on Linux. But we are looking at it", said Prof. Rudrappa. "ISCII is supported by both Windows and Linux."

Instead of working together, language experts work in mutual exclusion — at the cost of tarnishing the cause of Kannada for IT. Will wisdom prevail in the chaotic world of Cyberage Kannada?

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