Gujarati software tools and fonts CD to be released tomorrow

Ahmedabad, Apr 30 (UNI) Department of Information Technology (DIT) under its Technology Development in Indian Languages (TDIL) Programme along with its premier institute, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) will be releasing a compilation of Gujarati language software tools and fonts CD for free public usage.

The function will be held at Gujarat Vishwakosh Parishad Auditorium here tomorrow.

Former President of the Gujarati Sahitya Parishad and author of over hundred books Padmashri Dr Kumarpal Desai will facilitate release of the Software Tools and Fonts for Gujarati.

DIT Joint Secretary and Financial Advisor, Group Coordinator Language Computing Group E K Bharat Bhushan will preside over the ceremony.

The release is part of a national initiative by the departments to proliferate the use of Indian languages in Information Technology. Software Tools and Fonts for Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Assamese, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi and Urdu have been released earlier, as part of this initiative.

DIT has initiated Technology Development for Indian Languages (TDIL) with the objective of developing Information Processing Tools and Techniques to facilitate human-machine interaction without language barrier; creating and accessing multi-lingual knowledge resources; and integrating them to develop innovative user products and services.

Commenting on the release, C-DAC Director General S Ramakrishnan stated, ''The unique multi-lingual nature of India poses a great challenge and opportunity as India moves to adopt IT in a big way.

Making IT available in local languages is imperative to ensure that benefit of this revolution reaches the common man and the pervasive nature of ICT offers enormous social and transformational impact on the daily lives of the common man.'' ''We are very proud to be part of this initiative from DIT and to have special privilege of bringing this rich collection of free Gujarati tools and fonts. We hope this unique programme will help accelerate widespread adoption of applications through desk-top, laptops, and internet in a convenient and friendly way by the masses,'' he added.

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