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We are passing through a most critical but
an optimistic chapter of history. Critical in the sense that,
the function and the survival of government have been
questioned by the emerging reality of liberalization, in which
the emancipatory function of government is reducing from a
provider to facilitator. In its positive sense, it is
optimistic because of the extension of government to people
and people to government by the emerging use of information
technology in the different apparatus of government. In the case
of Information Technology the language is a question and the
absence of local language is a challenge. So when we spend
more and more for technology in e-governance we are alienating
more and more from what we have intended and what we have
dreamed. It is high time and a better opportunity to transform
all mode of communication technology into the language of our
thoughts and the language of our dreams and the language of
our pains, sorrows and everything. So let us prevent suicide
again and let government survive for us.
In this context, NILA is a dream, a dream to realize a vision;
to make it a mission to enable e-governance through Malayalam
and socialize modernization of government programmes through
Malayalam.
By the successful deployment of NILA in all our government and
nongovernmental apparatus, even the last poor man of your
state can keep in touch with any faculty of government to
inform he\she is their in language of there self. At the same
time any responsible representative of his\her in any sector
of government can respond to him\her in the language of our
state.
The NILA is neither a project nor a product but it is a
mission and a vision to localize IT and socialize e-governance
through Malayalam. And let us forget the inflation of jargons
raining from the techno-economy of Information revolution, try
to know what we need, and take a risk to get what we need. We
want a revolution in localization; we need an effort to take
our language in the emerging technology of extension and
existence of democracy. In Hebermas’ sense “democracy is
discursive in which every subject with the competence to speak
and act is allowed to take part in a discourse, everyone is
allowed to question any assertion whatever, everyone is
allowed to introduce any assertion whatever into the
discourse, everyone is allowed to express his attitudes,
desires, and needs and no speaker may be prevented, by
internal or external coercion, from exercising his rights as
subject of our” state. Habermas' concept of the public sphere
to understand the emancipatory potential of the Internet is a
green signal.
The Internet provides opportunities for limited
revitalization of the public sphere. These new opportunities
are limited to privileged groups, but it is at least an
increase in the activities of the public sphere, however
modest. If Internet use expands into middle-income groups,
lower-income groups and women, it may yet present a real
opportunity for greater participation, democratic
communication, and true revitalizations of the public sphere.
Poster: (1999) Essays on Cyber Democracy
Computational Linguistic team at C-DIT
makes it sure that we can bridge not the digital divide but
the digital divide resulted by the linguistic divide, by
enabling Malayalam in all aspect of Information Technology,
primarily in e-governance.
By the first of November 2004, we can deliver the first
official Malayalam Language Software NILA, by the end of
December we can deploy it all over Kerala, and by the third
month of 2005 we can train our officials to use NILA to
realize e-governance through Malayalam. NILA will localize
e-governance and transform Malayalam as a democratic medium of
governance. Above all NILA will animate the first wave of
Malayalam Language Technology by its subsequent phases of
KABANI, KAVERI, PAMPA, PERIYAR etc. |
