Bharateeya OpenOffice
Should Indian languages be left behind in the world of computing? No, argues the National Centre for Software Technology, whose team in Bangalore recently came out with its localisation solutions for Open Office (the open source software option to proprietary office tools).

NCST’s team has been working to localise and internationalise OpenOffice.org in Indian Languages. They have localised OpenOffice.org in Hindi on Windows and Linux, and in Tamil on Windows.

This team has also enabled Complex Text Layout support for all main Indian languages as well as other internationalisation features like Indian currency and calendar translations in Hindi and Tamil, on Windows.
Localisation work in Tamil on Linux, as well as Complex Text Layout support and other internationalisation aspects on Linux Open Office is going on.

Their work has been recognised by OpenOffice.org and has been copyright approved. On their site, some screenshots of the localised applications have been uploaded, and there are also localised binaries for Hindi and Tamil for free download.

Bhupesh Koli, Shikha Pillai and Velmani N, all part of the team working on this project, say they need open type fonts in Tamil and other languages for localisation work in GNU/Linux. “Would anyone help us in this direction?” they ask.

Ravikant <ravikant@sarai .net>, a Delhi-based former academic and historian, has some critical feedback. Says he: “I did download the Hindi version on my Windows desktop. It seems somebody has translated from the German version. And it is still partial, only a beginning. A lot of work is yet to be done.”

Ravikant adds that he has himself been trying to work on translation of OO (Open Office). “Why is the translation team following a Sanskritised vocabulary? It sounds more difficult than the original English. Let us put our heads together and come up with more creative translations. This is after having conceded that it is by no means easy,” says he.

The website is located at www.ncb.ernet.in/bharateeyaoo

Simputer maker
From PicoPeta Simputers and Nagarjun K <nagarjun@picopeta.com> comes news that Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and PicoPeta Simputers Private Limited have forged an alliance to manufacture and market a new range of Simputers.

“These devices will be marketed as BEL-PicoPeta Simputers and will cover a spectrum of applications and price points,” said Nagarjun.

BEL has manufactured more than 400 Simputers for PicoPeta in a pilot production phase, at its Bangalore facility.
“The BEL-PicoPeta Simputers are a radical improvement over the earlier Simputer prototypes along several fronts. The production of the first batch of 1,000 BEL-PicoPeta Simputers will be completed in November 2002,” said PicoPeta, who are one of the groups fighting a valiant battle—against economics and unhelpful policies—to bring out this common man’s computing device.

The current price of the BEL-PicoPeta Simputer will be Rs 13,000, with duties and taxes as applicable. BEL and PicoPeta are determined to bring the price closer to Rs 10,000 in the next six months, promised the firm.
The BEL-PicoPeta Simputers are powered by Linux and Malacca. Malacca, described as “a revolutionary new interface for the Simputer developed by PicoPeta,” makes the combination a powerful, customer-friendly and full-featured machine.

Ironically, while the Indian government seems quick to claim credit for the work on the Simputer, it has not even put a rupee into the project. The IT minister had promised to remove excise duty on the Simputer priced below
Rs 10,000. But nothing has happened on this front yet.

Incidentally, the Karnataka IT secretary had also made public announcements last year that sales tax exemption would be given to Simputers. But this is a chicken and egg situation. The duty waiver can happen only after the Simputers get into production. But to get into production, and catch public imagination, they need to be priced attractively. Duty sops would help.

In spite of all the praise it has earned, nobody has dared to invest significantly in the Simputer venture. Both PicoPeta and Encore—the firms incubated out of the teams that initially conceived and worked on this—are striving to stay alive and get the Simputers somehow produced.

Volume production will take time. But costs are dependent on volume, which in turn is dependent on upfront large orders. A Catch-22 situation. Could the government at least put its money where its mouth is?

Indic wordprocessor
Anitha Gowda <nanitha@-mgmt.iisc.ernet.in> of IISc in Bangalore recently announced that one of their
projects, “Brahmi-Java Indic WordProcessor” is now live on the Sourceforge website.

Check out the homepage at brahmi.sourceforge.net. “We plan to upload a few more research documents on to our homepage shortly,” said Gowda, soliciting feedback on the word processor.

Pantoto
Pantoto is an “online community builder” that can be used to support existing communities, customisable to the needs of any community. It uses information architecture tools to allow communities to manage and nurture a repository of community knowledge. Besides, it promises to encourage information-centric communication between community members.

“The software is user friendly, has a light footprint and works in a browser-based environment,” said the Dutch-US educated computer scientists T B Dinesh of Bangalore and Suzan Uskudarli of US-Turkish descent.

What is interesting is their openness to study the ground-level reality, and have an open mind on how others work and what their requirements are. Their goal is to provide support to communities, and create an online platform “where people can interact and come together for a common cause or interest.”

Quite a big job, with potentially huge returns on how people relate to each other. More information from SERVELOTS Infotech Private Limited at www.pantoto.com.

Gross failures
This should be an interesting contest. It comes from Dr Richard Heeks <richard.-heeks@man.ac.uk>. Heeks was recently offering prizes of 300 pounds sterling for those who could provide case studies of e-governance that “can be classified as a ‘total failure’ or ‘largely unsuccessful’.”

“These categories were under-represented in the initial competition, but can provide a very valuable learning resource. Cases as well as author(s) can be made anonymous to protect identities,” said Heeks.

E-governance cases must involve a public sector organisation as at least one of the users, owners or funders of an ICT-based system, according to the call going out. See examples of existing cases at: www.egov4dev.org/topic1cases.htm

It’s interesting to note that critical voices are increasingly entering the IT for development debate. With all the money being poured into it, it’s important to separate the wheat from the chaff. That’s not always easy. Sometimes, those responsible for the project are far, far better at packaging rather than producing real results.

Neutral IT education
Prof Nagarjuna G <nagarjun@hbcse.tifr.res.in> of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai is working to study how school syllabi could be made brand-free, ensuring that no single company—howsoever dominant—gets a stranglehold on computer education in the future.

He calls this a “secular” syllabus for IT education. Said he: “I need some help from all. Could you send me the syllabus of various IT courses in the school, college, universities, or institutions (any level as long as the topics are related to IT) that are familiar or nearer to you, either in electronic form or printed or photocopies or faxed or mailed to my address?”

Fighting corruption
Satellite mapping to fight corruption? Digital maps of Bangladesh are proving invaluable in the fight against sleaze in a country branded as one of the most corrupt in the world.

The maps are used together with a computerised national database to decide where new roads or schools should be built. The aim is to ensure that tough decisions about development priorities and spending are governed by local needs rather than the whims of politicians.

Focus on charity
What’s this? It’s the work of Nipun Mehta. Mehta, still in his twenties, was in Bangalore recently.

CharityFocus is a volunteer-run non-profit organisation, started in April 1999, to empower non-profits with Web-based technological solutions. What started with four volunteers has now expanded to 1,500 in 15 different countries, and has served over 850 non-profit requests.

“The value of these services adds up to millions of dollars but most importantly it has given volunteers a chance to increase the charity in their lives, which is priceless,” said a statement explaining this group’s raison d’etre.

Governed virtually and supported by partnerships with local corporations, CharityFocus operates on a very low overhead. Leveraging its established infrastructure, CharityFocus has also become an incubator of grassroots, volunteer projects. Along with the non-profit projects, it is currently building on a vision of being the service portal on the Web and setting up various local chapters.

Nipun Mehta, its founder, is a graduate of UC Berkeley in computer science and philosophy. He started CharityFocus at the age of 23. His conviction to be of service to those around him, coupled with an internal spiritual drive, led him to quit his full-time career as a software engineer at Sun. Currently, he works part of the year to sustain himself and dedicates the rest of his time to volunteer activities. Apart from CharityFocus, he serves on the board of the Seva Foundation, IGC (Institute For Global Communications), Airline Ambassadors, and Silicon Valley Volunteer Center. URL: www.charityfocus.org

IT for drugs?
Check how IT is playing its role in making medicine more people friendly. Recently, a new e-discussion group was launched. It’s called INDIA-DRUG and is a partnership between WHO/GENEVA, WHO/India Essential Drugs Programme (EDP), and SATELLIFE (a non-profit organisation based in the US).

The goal of INDIA-DRUG is to link healthcare professionals around India working in the field of the rational use of drugs to each other and to useful sources of information.

Did you know, for instance, that most new WHO publications on essential drugs are available and can be downloaded free of charge from www.who.int/medicines

To participate in this moderated discussion group, send an e-mail to india-drug@usa.healthnet.org. To view the archived messages, visit the website www.essentialdrugs.org and select ‘india-drug’.

India Computes! is presented by Frederick Noronha, a freelance journalist based in Goa. He is the co-founder of BytesForAll, a voluntary, unfunded venture focusing on how IT and the Internet can benefit the common man, particularly in South Asia. To join the BytesForAll mailing list sign up at:

https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/bytesforall_readers