BENGALURU: Namaste! Assalām alaikum! Sat Sri Akal! Khair Magdam! Nomoskaar! Vanakkam! Namaskara! Namaskaram! That’s how the way to greet someone changes when you move across India. With so many languages and dialects, it can be hard for the internet to entertain everyone in India and that’s where including regional languages can facilitate them. According to Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) also, the future of internet depends on increased engagement of regional language users, even as setting standards for using languages online is a complex problem that needs assistance from different stakeholders in India as reported by BI INDIA BUREAU.

The Internet has also started to work on this thought and has set up a specialized panel for Indian languages for working on developing Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) and internet standards for enabling different scripts and languages in India. A Domain Name System (DNS) for Indian languages is also being involved in the process. "IDNs will help to pave the way for a truly multilingual and accessible internet. In India, where we have 22 constitutional languages, IDNs will open up opportunities for the non-English speaking Indian communities to come online. The formation of the Neo-Brahmi Generation Panel is the first step towards a multilingual Internet for India," told Professor Udaya Narayana Singh, chair, Neo-Brahmi Generation Panel.

Started in May 2015, the panel for this process includes Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) professionals, linguists, private sector organizations, and experts of policy making. To develop IDNs domain names in local languages is the top priority of this dedicated panel. Following which users will be able to read and write in Assamese, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil or other Indian languages online.

Demographics of India is a proof enough that there u=is a mountain to climb ahead of this group, as there are 122 languages with over 1,576 mother-tongues spoken in India, most of which are written in 13 different scripts, with 53 more minor writing systems. In addition to these, there are other languages which have been constitutionally identified in India.

“The critical part is the technology itself...The fact that India is such a large part of the (online) user base and the fact that we're not part of that conversation should worry us. There's opportunity for academics, IT companies, and companies which have digital R&D on these subjects. It is imperative that Indian companies get engaged," Samiran Gupta, head of India, ICANN

Furthermore there are many issues which the Indian IT industry is facing and will stand as block in the road of this group. The Indian IT industry lacks representation at internet governance forums such as ICANN which helps organize the Internet with the allotment of domain names such as.com, .org and .net.

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