Another year is drawing to an end. Christmas is around the corner, and it is a time to make wishes. While you might be wishing for a low-cost supercomputer or uber-powered gaming gizmo on your desk, your maid is perhaps wishing she could at least use your old computer to read some magazines online or to learn the basics of science or math, to teach her school-going kid! Well, you might be a good Samaritan ready to give her your old desktop machine once you buy your new, power-packed one, but will she really be able to use it? Quite unlikely, unless it becomes possible to interacr with a computer enrirely in her. mother tongue.

Do a Web. search for 'Indic language computing' and you will find articles dating back years. Yet, till date it remains a dream-too good to be true. Yes, there have been some success stories. You can now blog in major Indian languages; your word processor also probably supports several Indian fonrs; some operating systems and applications have multiple language supports;'You can even SMS in Indian languages. However, most of these are changes that we, the comp:ner-literates, are able to notice. Has there been an Indic language computing movement that has reached the masses, and instilled at that level the confidence that they can use the computer in their own language, as efficiently and thoroughly as you or I can in English? I doubt it.

To be realistic, perhaps this will nar happen for quite some time. Some of the reasons are obvious. First, anybody making an effort towards localisation should understand that Indian languages are not like English. They are based on the syllable rather than the alphabet (e.g., my name in any Indian language would comprise only three syllables-'ja', 'na' and 'ni', while in English, these three syllables require. six letters of the alphabet). This means that we need differenr standards for digitising Indian languages. Without intending to bring alive an evergreen debate ... perhaps Unicode would do?

Next, we need to understand that enabling all Indians to use the computer in their language is not an easy task. Because, there are actually more Indian languages than the 18 recognised officially by our governmenr. Some dialects are so complex that they can be considered as languages in their own right. So, no single company can come out with conrenr, dictionaries, translators or libraries for all these languages. This needs localised effort, streamlined and unified by some nation-wide body-perhaps using the principles and practices of open source. Thereafter, it needs commitment from the local people to take their own dialects to the digital realm. Today, every village can boast of a success story-an NRI who once studied in the vernacular medium in the local school. It is these people who have to remember their roars and contribute to enable their own people to connect with the digital world that abounds with knowledge and communities that they can hugely benefit from.

Ultimately, that is the wish I shall whisper in Santa Claus' ear this Christmas-will he remind every Indian that there are people in their own house, in their own community, their own village, who c,annot use the computer and benefit frow the information and connectivity mat we take so much for granted. Can they do their part-in some small way-to create content, fonrs or code that will touch one more dialect and One more community with the economic and social benefits of digitisation?

However, even if Santa does that, will Indians do their part? No, not unless there is some easy way to do so. Not many people (even those who are inclined to help) will have the patience to search for a localisation project that seeks contributions from the public, find out what needs to be done and how, and then do it. We need to be educated. We need unified effort by a nation-wide body, a leadet to guide those who wish to contribute, and the publicising (in mainstream media) of first the need and then the means of contributing to Indic language computing. The government, the Indian entrepreneur, or the IT conglomerates-who's going to do this?