Andhra developing Telugu Internet

HYDERABAD: For bringing the Internet closer to Telugu people and the Telugu language to Internet users, the information and technology department has started working on developing Telugu Internet.Registration with the Unicode Authority as member of the consortium, development of a Unicode-compliant Telugu font for Internet usage and identification of browsers supporting free use of Telugu writing and publishing on the Internet are under way.Based on a decision taken by information technology minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah during the first Telugu Internet Symposium organised at the Dr MCRHRD Institute in April, the state government on Monday constituted an advisory committee with members drawn from the government and the public to monitor the progress of the exercise of developing Telugu Internet. The committee will monitor and give necessary instructions to the authorities concerned with regard to identification of web editors and browsers enabling free use of Telugu writing, develop a Unicode-compliant Telugu font with at least six variants, a comprehensive Telugu spell-check, keyboard (layout) standard for Telugu typing or keying in. It will also see that all the departments will have their own websites in Telugu.The committee has the principal secretary (IT & C) as chairman and the chief executive officer of the Institute of Electronic Governance (IEG) as convener. The members will include Silicon Andhra (NGO) founder K Anand, former minister M Buddha Prasad, Prof G Umamaheswar Rao of the UoH, Prof Peri Bhaskar Rao of the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, V Veera Venkata Chowdary from e-Telugu group and a representative of the Telugu Official Language Commission.