The Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF), and Sarai, CSDS, have decided to enter into a collaboration with the broad goal of making computing facilities available to people in Indian languages, thus empowering them to access information and work in their native tongues. As the development paradigm in India shifts towards an emphasis on knowledge driven through information technology, computing in Indian languages becomes increasingly important for the flourishing of hitherto marginalised languages and cultures, and their inclusion in the emerging economy. A key aspect of Indian language computing is localisation, i.e., the process of translating the user interface of software applications into Indian languages, thus making it possible to make full use of them without knowing any English. Towards this end, RGF and Sarai, CSDS, have jointly funded fellowships for localisation of free/open source software (FOSS) into languages including Assamese, Hindi, Kashmiri, Oriya, and Urdu. Typically, such a localisation effort covers at least twothirds of the applications included in a FOSS desktop, working out to the translation of about 40, 000 phrases, or of nearly 3, 00, 000 words. While the Hindi translation is quite advanced, localisation work is just commencing in Kashmiri and Urdu, and is at an early stage in Assamese and Oriya.

We plan on holding a series of public workshops at various places in the country, focused around the work in the fellowships. The goal of these workshops will be to disseminate the material created during the course of the fellowships, and to publicise the availability of computer interfaces in Indian languages. A manual review of the application interfaces is needed to identify any problems with the translations, and we will conduct such a review by taking advantage of the expertise of the variety of people from different backgrounds present at the workshops.

The first of these workshops will be held in the seminar room of Sarai, CSDS, on the 7th, and 8th of March, 2008, from 10am onwards on each day. It will present the current status of work done in Hindi, and Urdu. Some translators for Kashmiri will also be present to discuss the status of work being started on that language. For Hindi, this will include showcasing work done on localizing KDE 3.5, and on the forthcoming release, KDE 4. The former work has won an award from FOSS India 2008 as one of the outstanding FOSS projects in India, and the latter will be important in ensuring that localisation keeps pace with new releases of the desktop. For Urdu, this will cover the preparation of a glossary of technical terms, and the exhibition of the first few applications localized into Urdu. People commencing the Kashmiri work will discuss the issues that they face, and their approach to solving these.

You are cordially invited to be present at the workshop. The workshop is open to the public, and you are encouraged to post this note on public notice boards, and to forward the invitation to others.