Localization, a driving force for IT

NEW DELHI: MAIT organized an international summit on localization on December 8 along with the ministry of communications and IT, government of India and the Consortium on Innovation and Language Technology (COIL tech). The forum is expected to provide a platform for participants to use their knowledge and experience to propose a policy, which will benefit every Indian.

MAIT executive director Vinnie Mehta said, "India has emerged as a pioneer in IT and the Internet is the highway of the global village. However, many people all over the world are unable to realize its full benefit because of the inability to use the applications in their native language. Therefore, the Indian government, its institutions and collaborators have strived towards enabling the Internet to support multiple Indian scripts and languages. We have to ensure support of Indian languages in our operating system".

Speaking on the occasion, IT department secretary, Brijesh Kumar said, "IT penetration in our country is very low. Moreover, two-third of the Internet usage is in English. We should uniform our use of IT in Indian languages so that our rural areas are benefited. The Government of India has implemented National Policy of Localization with the aim of bringing the tools of information and communications technologies to each and every Indian."

According to Oracle India MD, Shekhar Das Gupta the biggest problems that is faced by users is lack of 24/7 support in local languages.

Microsoft customer and partner experience director, Sanjiv Mathur said, "Microsoft has developed a software which is available in 14 different local languages. We have to work towards the adoption of local language standards and reach the rural population of the country and teach them how to use our applications in Indian languages."