Develop language software to bridge digital divide: Kohli

Bangalore, Feb 14 (UNI) Tata Consultancy Services Founder Faqir C Kohli today said development of software in Indian languages is important to bridge the digital divide, which stood in the way of taking the benefits of IT revolution to the masses.

Delivering the keynote address at the third International Asian Conference on 'The Challenges of Globalisation', organised by the International Technology Law Association here, he said debate on digital divide could be meaningful only if computer software was made available in regional languages.

''To me, there is no digital divide in India because 900 million people cannot speak English, the only language in which a computer can now be accessed. We are spending more time on thinking how to increase our IT exports, instead of creating software for the common man. The Government should also take the blame for its lopsided policies and failure to popularise usage of computer at the grassroots level for a long time,'' he said.

Dr Kohli, widely known as the 'Father of Indian Software Industry', said India should take a lead from China in this regard.

It had spent all its energies in developing software in Mandarin that made a high percentage of people computer literate.

''Revenues from IT business in India stands at 45 billion US Dollars, out of which 35 billion Dollars comes from software. A major portion of 30 billion Dollars came from exports and the size of domestic market is just five billion Dollars. Of this, half is imported from companies like Oracle or Microsoft. Whereas China's IT business volume is 35 billion Dollars, it does not export anything,'' he said.

He said it was heartening that some organisations and educational institutions had launched development of language software in the country. As a result, software in nine languages was now being developed and he was hopeful that IT revolution would fructify within the country also.

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