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The State’s Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh has in fact placed IT and the
Internet on the top of their economic agenda. Apart from English, he is also
laying stress on Marathi on the Net to reach the masses. Most States today are
becoming increasingly aware of the fact that they have to Internet-enable themselves or
face extinction.
Besides a strong IT and Internet thrust, Indian states are also working
towards creating IT policies that promote the proliferation of cutting
edge technologies within their geographies.
The issue however that our statesmen are faced with, relates to the
mass mobilization of the Internet. For the Net to become a full scale consumer movement
and for it to reach into the nooks and crannies of the country and touch the lives of
millions of Indians—it has to center itself around a vernacular base.
The Internet has to speak the language of the regional/local masses in order to achieve the
magnitude of penetration that the country’s architects are desiring.
Our Internet, dot com and software companies have to start thinking in terms of
“
localized,” language-centric initiatives that cater to the requirements of the different
language speaking groups across the country. Delhi’s Chief Minister Ms. Sheila
Dikshit has already taken steps to encourage Hindi Websites.
Software solutions and applications have to be developed in vernacular languages
and the languages in turn have to conform to specially created standards. A lot of
good work is already going into introducing standardization in the
Japanese and Arabic scripts, making these languages very Internet
friendly.
On the Indian side, a number of our English oriented Websites
will have to offer special buttons for language conversion. Besides
the software, hardware too for the Internet will have to become more affordable
and easily available. Not only will we have to look at options such as Rs. 10,000
and under PCs, products such as set-top boxes will also have to bear price tags that
suit the Indian pocket. Already companies such as Samsung are advertising products
that will offer TV watchers, both Internet browsing and e-mail facilities.
The falling cost of hardware such as cable modems (which will soon be available in
the Rs. 2,500 price bracket) will go a long way in catalyzing the delivery of the
The Internet has to speak the language
of the regional/local masses in order to
achieve the magnitude of penetration
that the country’s architects are desiring.
