Hindi Morphological Tagger Written by Vasu Renganathan

IBM Research: Hindi Audio Visual Speech Recognition

"At the IBM India Research Lab (IRL), we are extending the IBM ViaVoiceTM recognition technology to build a speech recognition system for the Hindi language. We have identified a phone set consisting of 61 phonemes for Hindi. A mapping from the English phone set to Hindi phone set was used to bootstrap the English acoustic model to build the initial phone models for HindiP2. Using these models, we have built an acoustic model for Hindi by training it on a large sample of Hindi acoustic data. We have the setup to collect and transcribe speech samples that are used to train the acoustic models.

"We have built a statistical language model for Hindi, which captures the language statistics from a huge amount of text data. Currently we are working on increasing the accuracy of our Hindi speech recognition system by enhancing the Acoustic and Language models. The recognition system performs well over a trained context and we have a demo of a large vocabulary continuous speech Hindi recognition system at the Lab. Our goal is to cover more Indian languages and then to build a multilingual speech recognizor for the Indian languages based on a multilingual phone set."

Office suite for PCs at Rs 1995
Thru Rediff

"C K Technologies on Tuesday launched 'Shakti Office 1.72,' the latest version of its office suite software for personal computers, priced one-tenth of Microsoft's Office suite.

'We have priced Shakti Office 1.72 at Rs 1,995 compared to Microsoft office 2003 suite's Rs 30,000 plus,' Manoj R Annadurai, managing director, CK Technologies, told reporters in Chennai.
He said Shakti Office 1.72 was tailor-made for Indian market with bilingual capabilities.

'The bilingual feature allows users of the suite to switch over to either Hindi or Tamil, while using English,' he said."

From The Dominance of Angreziyat in Our Education by Madhu Kishwar on Sulekha (old article)

"I came to understand the full implications of the great harm being done by the dominating position of English in India as I went through the process of acquiring proficiency in it. For all my English-based education, I find myself a linguistic cripple. Even today, despite years of working in it, writing or even speaking in English does not come easily to me. I make all kinds of silly mistakes and find myself groping for words, unable to fully express my ideas and thoughts in English. I rarely make such mistakes when I write or speak in Hindi or Punjabi. English has not become the language of my dreams, my prayers or even humour. I find it really hard to crack a joke in English. At the same time it has seriously impaired my ability to write in Hindi or my mother tongue, Punjabi because most of the information giving material on important issues as well as literary writings from other languages are available only in English. Hindi and regional languages starve for want of such material. "

The farmer who provides food for the mind
Thru India News Online

"In an age when libraries have all but disappeared from even the biggest Indian cities giving way to corner shops lending out the latest film instead, a farmer here works hard to keep the reading habit alive and kicking.

"And Vishwa Pratap Singh of Chaukheri village does it all with his own funds.

"From a few books in 1955, the library started by Singh's grandfather has grown to 5,000 volumes, including rare manuscripts dating back 300 years.

"Think of any remarkable work in Hindi and chances are that you will find it in Singh's library. So whether the reader is looking for novels by doyens of Hindi literature like Bharatendu Harishchandra, Munshi Premchand or Mahadevi Verma or works from contemporary writers like Nirmal Verma and Dharamvir Bharti, it's all here in Singh's treasure trove."
[...]

"सच्चा लेखक विचारधारा का दास नहीं होता" - निर्मल वर्मा

दैनिक जागरण से प्रख्यात लेखक निर्मल वर्मा का एक साक्षात्कार (सम्भवतः पुराना)

बिना अंग्रेज़ी इंटरनेट के इस्तेमाल पर विचार
(बीबीसी हिंदी से)

"इंटरनेट को उनके लिए फ़ायदेमंद कैसे बनाएँ जो अंग्रेज़ी या किसी पश्चिमी भाषा का इस्तेमाल नहीं करते?

"इंटरनेट युग में ये एक अहम सवाल है जिसपर विचार करने लिए मलेशिया की राजधानी कुआलालंपुर में दुनिया के तमाम देशों से आए इंटरनेट के जानकारों की बैठक चल रही है.
[...]
"मलेशिया में ये बैठक ऐसे वक़्त हो रही है जब ये अनुमान व्यक्त किया जा रहा है कि कुछ ही वर्षों के भीतर इंटरनेट इस्तेमाल करनेवालों में सर्वाधिक आबादी एशियाई लोगों की होगी.

"ऐसी सूरत में विशेषज्ञ ये विचार कर रहे हैं कि इंटरनेट के लिए उन भाषाओं या लिपियों के मानक कैसे तय हों.

"साथ ही डॉट कॉम, डॉट ऑर्ग या डॉट नेट की तर्ज़ पर इंटरनेट के कुछ नए पते बनाने पर भी बात होगी."

भारतीय लिपियों के लिए यूनिकोड में प्रस्तावित परिवर्तन

"बहुभाषी साफ़्टवेयर के विकास के लिए यूनीकोड मानकों का अद्योग द्वारा व्यापक प्रयोग किया जा रहा है। यूनीकोड स्टैंडर्ड 3.0 में ISC II-1988 पर आधारित भारतीय लिपियों के लिए मानक कोड सैट शामिल होते हैं (भारतीय लिपि कोड सूचना आदान-प्रदान के लिए ISC II-IS 13194:1991)। भारतीय लिपियों के पर्याप्त निरूपण के लिए यूनीकोड स्टैंडर्ड में कुछ रूपांतरण शामिल किए जाने जरूरी हैं। सूचना प्रौद्योगिकी विभाग संचार एवं सूचना टेक्नालोजी मंत्रालय यूनीकोड संसोरटियम का वोटिंग सदस्य है। सूचना टेक्नालॉजी विभाग ने संबंधित राज्य सरकारों, भारतीय आई टी उद्योग और भाषाविदों के परार्मा से वर्तमान यूनीकोड स्टैंडर्ड में प्रस्तावित परिवर्तनों को अंतिम रूप दिया गया है। इन्हें हाल ही में TDIL न्यूज़लेटर विश्वभारत@tdil अंक 4 (देवनागरी आधारित भाषाएं संस्कृत, हिन्दी, मराठी, नेपाली, कोंकणी, सिन्धी), अंक 5 (गुजराती, मलयालम तेलगू, गुरूमुखी, उड़िया), अंक 6 (बंगला, मनीपुरी और असमी), अंक 7-प्रिंट में (तामिल, कनाडा, उर्दू, सिन्धी, कमीरी)।" [sic]

(भारतीय भाषाओं के लिए प्रौद्योगिकी विकास (टीडीआईएल) साइट से)

हिंदी की महत्ता के सम्बन्ध में विद्वानों के मत
(नागरीप्रचारिणी सभा से)

वी.ओ.ए. हिन्दी की पचासवीं वर्षगांठ
Thru VOA

"The Voice of America Hindi Service celebrates its 50th birthday Thursday.

The service began broadcasting in 1954 with 30 minutes of service per day. It has since expanded its daily programming to 90 minutes, and added television reporting, call-in programs and an Internet website.

Hindi programing includes shows on science, health, environment, business, music, women and many other subjects.

The service, which employs more than two dozen reporters and corespondents worldwide, has won more than 100 awards over the years from both within VOA and from outside institutions."

"पहली जुलाई को वी.ओ.ए. हिन्दी प्रसारण के पचास वर्ष पूरे हुए । इस अवसर पर हमारी दोनों सभाओं में विशेष कार्यक्रम सुनियेगा ।

"वी.ओ.ए. हिन्दी का पहला प्रसारण पहली जुलाई 1954 को हुआ था । तब से अब तक हमने बहुत सी मंज़िलें पार की हैं । पग पग पर हमें श्रोताओ का सहयोग मिलता रहा ।

"अपनी पचासवीं वर्षगांठ के अवसर पर हम पूरे वर्ष विशेष कार्यक्रम प्रसारित करते रहेंगे । हमें सुनना जारी रखियेगा ।"

Asia Cup matches to be telecast in Hindi as well
(Thru The Hindu)

"In a bid to increase the cricket viewership base in India, sports broadcasting major ESPN-Star Sports, today announced that it would provide simultaneous telecast of important Asia Cup matches in English and Hindi on its two channels.
[...]
""We want to get closer to the viewers in India. We want to say India this is your channel by giving the option to the viewer to watch his favourite game in a language which he understands best," R C Venkateish, Managing Director, ESPN Software India Private Limited, said at a press conference here today.

""Simultaneous telecast of live matches on two channels is a first of its kind initiative," he said adding Indian Oil would be the principal sponsor of the Asia Cup starting in Sri Lanka on July 16.

"The Hindi cricket telecast will be called 'Voice Aaki-Choice Aapki' and Hindi would be used for all aspects of the telecast including show hosting, commentary and graphics."

ब्राउजर "ओपरा" (Opera) हिन्दी में

बकौल अनुवादक धनञ्जय शर्मा:
"मैंने ओपरा ७.२३ संस्मरण (लिनक्स तथा विंडोज़ हेतु) का हिन्दी अनुवाद हाल ही में समाप्त किया है और ओपरा अनुवाद प्रबंधक को समीक्षा व अनुमोदन हेतु प्रेषित किया था। अब इन अनुवादों का अनुमोदन हो गया है और ये हिन्दी भाषा फ़ाइलें ओपरा ७.२३ के लिए लिनक्स तथा विंडोज़
दोनों के लिए अब ओपरा अधिकारिक वेब-स्थल पर उपलब्ध हैं।"

ascii to devanagarii converter from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

A Web site - www.mla.org - launched Wednesday by the Modern Language Association allows anyone to track the breakdown of languages anywhere in the United States, even down to ZIP code, based on 2000 census numbers.

Hindi, with 3,17,057 speakers, is the 18th most spoken language in the country. If Urdu speakers (2,62,900; at 20th position) are included the ranking goes up to 13th. The only other Indian language identified for tracking - Gujarati - is at the 21st position with 2,35,988 speakers.

Kuwaiti Embassy launches Hindi, Urdu websites

"New Delhi, June 16. (UNI): Information and Broadcasting Minister S Jaipal Reddy today launched the Hindi and Urdu websites of the Kuwait Information Office at a function here. "

The Hindi website URL is: http://www.kuwait-info.com/hindi/