Google launches India site in 4 languages:

"Google.com, the world's top search engine has launched an India site. The site, launched in four languages ? Hindi, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu ? was launched today quietly without any brouhaha.

This site, google.co.in, comes only a few weeks after they launched a news site for India. Whenever a visitor from India lands on the Google home page the user is automatically taken to the Google India website."

Govt. plans Hindi medium for NDA exam: Fernandes

"New Delhi, July 31. (UNI): The Government is actively considering introduction of Hindi as a medium for the NDA entrance examination, said Defence Minister George Fernandes in the Lok Sabha today.

In a written reply, he said at present the question papers for NDA are printed only in English.

All the recruitment examinations conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) except the Civil Service (Main) Examination are held in English medium only, Fernandes added. "

Bollywood songs improve mass literacy! - Sify.com:

"New Delhi: Bollywood songs are helping in literacy improvement as the 'idiot box' turns 'read-it box' for millions of semi-literate and illiterate people in the country.

Social entrepreneur Brij Kothari has partnered with Doordarshan and is using subtitles in the nationally televised song show 'Chitrahaar' to help reinforce reading skills for the semi-literate and illiterate audience.

Professor Kothari, a literacy expert at the Centre for Educational Innovation at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad (IIMA), has pioneered ''Same Language Subtitling'' (SLS) -- subtitling the lyrics of 'Chitrahaar' songs on television in Hindi.

The lyrics from the hit songs of Bollywood movies are subtitled in Hindi word for word in synchronisation with the visuals. The songs in the music videos are hugely popular and the lyrics well-known.

SLS builds on people's knowledge of the lyrics, enabling partially literate people to anticipate the sub-titles and read along as hearing and reading reinforce each other.

He is using a $250,000 award from Development Marketplace for the innovative pilot project that leverages existing TV viewing by semi-literate villagers for literacy improvement."

India aiming for Hindi recognition at UN - Sify.com:

"New Delhi: India is making an all out efforts for getting Hindi recognised as the seventh official language at the United Nations.

The issue was discussed at a meeting convened by External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha with the officials of his Ministry.
The meeting constituted a task force, led by Minister of State for External Affairs Digvijay Singh, for a follow-up action on the efforts to get Hindi recognised at the UN.

The task force will draw up a list of the countries which could be targetted for support in this regard.

The committee would also get in touch with the Indian diaspora to get its support on the issue.

Presently, English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Arabic are the six languages recognised by the UN.

The support of 96 countries will be needed out of a total 190 members of the UN for getting Hindi recognised as the seventh official language by the world body. "

Yahoo! Groups : devanaagarii:

देवनागरी में लिखने और पढ़ने के बारे में चर्चा

Indian languages to remain in S Africa curricula - Sify.com:

"Durban: The South African Government has agreed to retain four Indian languages- Tamil, Hindi, Telugu and Urdu- right up to matriculation level at schools in the country, after weeks of protests from the Indian origin community against their proposed removal from the carricula. "
...

LinuxDevices.com - Trolltech announced the release of Qt version 3.2:

"Trolltech announced the release of Qt version 3.2. the popular C++ multiplatform application framework. According to Trolltech, the new version of Qt includes hundreds of enhancements and features that enable developers to build high-performance, low maintenance multiplatform applications.

Key features of Qt 3.2 are said to include . . .

* The SQL support in Qt 3.2 includes drivers for IBM's DB2, complete support for stored procedures, and improved connection parameters.

* The addition of Indic script input and rendering means that Qt 3.2 now supports all major script-based languages, including advanced languages such as Hindi and Bengali."
...

Indian Lexicon: An Overview:

DEDICATED TO: PA_N.INI and TOLKA_PPIYAN-
Dr. S. Kalyanaraman
11 May 1998

"This is a comparative study of the 'semantics' of lexemes of all the languages of India (which may also be referred to, in a geographical/ historical phrase, as the Indian linguistic area). The objective of the lexicon is to discover the semantic repertoire of India ca. 3000 B.C. to further facilitate efforts at deciphering the inscriptions and script of the Sarasvati-Sindhu civilization.

The Indian Lexicon establishes an Indian Linguistic Area, ca. 3000 B.C. by authenticating the use of the lexemes for inscriptions of the civilization of the ancient period."

Troops may not go to Baghdad but GI Joe is learning Hindi
By Reshma Patil (indianexpress.com)

Mumbai, July 14: For a while now, the US Department of Defense and its research wings have been in a tearing hurry to read Hindi. Because keeping tab on a faraway border that doesn’t speak English is tiresome work, the translation a painfully slow exercise.

So from June 1, commanded by a message — the surprise language is Hindi...Good luck! — from a research funding branch of the US military, around 100 computational linguists at 11 sites in the US and UK invented a new set of information tools to translate Hindi text into English. And query Hindi databases with English questions.

The technology can identify documents with ‘‘highest promise’’ of holding information the researcher is interested in, saving translators hours of drudgery.

‘‘A major national language too long neglected in the West with important similarities to other languages in northern India and to Urdu in Pakistan... it can benefit information retrieval in India and foster broader international co-operation and understanding,’’ flashed the Surprise Language Exercise command from sponsor Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA).
...

Hindi Pronunciation Guide हिन्दी उच्चारण

Hindi Pronunciation Guide
By Sunil Bhadekar

A collection of Links for learning Hindi maintained by Keith Skillicorn.

IT Terms in Hindi

Requires properietary 'Yuvraj' font (downloadbale from site).

द्वारे द्वारे ज्ञान संपदा

सूचना प्रौद्योगिकी विभाग, संचार एवं सूचना प्रौद्योगिकी मंत्रालय के मार्गदर्शन में सी-डॅक की 'द्वारे द्वारे ज्ञान संपदा' परियोजना द्वारा डिजिटल लाइब्रेरी की दस लाख पुस्तकें जन-जन तक पहुँचायी जा रही है |

पुस्तक मुद्रण हेतु फॉर्मेट की गई पुस्तकों का चयन, वेबसाइट से निम्नलिखित श्रेणियों के आधार पर किया जा सकता है:
� भाषा
� लेखक
� शीर्षक
इसमें हिंदी व अंग्रेजी की 350 पुस्तकें उपलब्ध हैं | जिन्हें वेबसाइट से डाउनलोड किया जा सकता है | यह वेबसाइट हिंदी व अंग्रेजी भाषाओं में उपलब्ध है |

Wired News: Pick a Language, Any Language
...
02:00 AM Jun. 07, 2003 PT

Like the elite group of government agents on the 1960s television show, a group of computer scientists and natural language experts were given a "mission" earlier this week: within a month, build a program that translates between English and a randomly chosen language.

The project, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, challenges researchers to quickly build translation tools when unforeseen needs arise.

The exercise is designed to imitate the need for translation during a national security threat, like a terrorist act, war or humanitarian crisis.
The element of surprise in the project is critical. Since Monday, computational linguistics research groups from around the country have been gathering resources on the pop-quiz language, Hindi.
...
In theory, this Hindi-and-English system could be useful for the military or the media, for instance, who want to monitor the ongoing tension between Pakistan and India.

"You'd be able to read what the Indian newspapers are saying and what Hindi organizations are putting up on their websites -- whether they are terrorists or high schools, for example," said Eduard Hovy, director of the natural language group at the Information Sciences Institute.

"Every paper has a slant, and the slant that the local population is reading is important to understand if you may be going there," Oard said.

Still, the challenge is only an exercise for these researchers, and there are no plans to continue funding the system built this month.
...
Complete article..

hi_IN.UTF-8 - viewing the Hindi content

A help page for Unicode Devanagari installation on Windows and *nix systems. By Alok Kumar.