India became the latest battleground in the war for supremacy between the top international computer companies, heralding a win-win situation for the consumer. Sallying forth into a battle is the biggest international player, Apple, a company that has set the bar for portable personal computers that use a touch-screen as a primary input device.

Tablet wars

The iPad, Apple Computer’s touch tablet-type personal computer, officially came to India today, a year and a day after it was introduced in the US. iPad is priced at Rs 27,900 for the basic model (Wi-Fi, 16GB).

Tablet PCs are invariable smaller and thus more portable than laptop computers, and instead of an actual keyboard, you have a virtual keyboard, i.e. you tap in the text directly onto the screen. They also have a wireless adapter for the Internet and local network connection.

Six versions of the iPad would be available in India, with 16GB, 32GB and 64GB memory in Wi-fi and Wi-Fi plus 3G versions. The hi-end Wi-Fi+3G, 64GB model costs Rs 44,900, according to information available on Apple’s website.

Internationally, the iPad has been a runaway success, and its impact on the Indian market will be significant. Samsung, which has a tablet PC called Galaxy Tab, has been available to Indian consumers since November last year, and according to industry estimates, is expected to sell 7,50,000 to 10 lakh units in a year.

Ruchika Batra, General Manager Corporate Communication, Samsung, South West Asia reacting to the official launch of iPad said it would further fuel the consumer interest in tablets. “2011 would the year of the tablets,” she said. Samsung is looking at garnering a 50 per cent market share in the tablet segment.

Significantly, Samsung slashed the price of its base model from Rs 38,000 to Rs 29,299 a day before the official launch of iPad in India. OlivePad, from Olive Telecom, retails at Rs 23,000 and then there is also Dell Streak, which is yet to make a significant impact.

While the iPad uses Apple’s propriety operating system famed for ease of use and great user experience, both Tab and OlivePad use Google’s freely available Android software that has gained much popularity among tablet PC and smartphone makers.

The iPad will also face competition from Dell, RIM and other players who are also looking at the world’s second biggest mobile market after China with 730 million customers. However, the price conscious consumers will demand good products at low prices.

Telecom operator BSNL announced dedicated 3G plans for the iPad at Rs 999 (unlimited monthly usage), Rs 599 (6GB free per month, 1p/10 kb after free usage) and Rs 99 (unlimited daily usage). Other telcos are also expected to launch tariff plans specifically for iPad.

Apple is expected to launch the next version of the iPad, known as iPad 2 soon, perhaps in weeks.

The article was published in The Tribune on January 29, 2011.

“Please call when you have the time, I have something for you,” said an SMS on my mobile phone. I was so busy that I didn’t even notice it, and called back a day later.

Now, in a typical Punjabi conversation you find out how everyone and everything is before you get to the crux of the matter. This conversation, too, took the same course.

In due course of time, the subject of the SMS came up. “We have managed to get some copies of Parkash,” said Devinder Singh, who has been responsible for digitising a large chunk of literature from the region and has pursued his goal with singular dedication.

The Nanakshahi Trust, of which is has been an energetic part, has been on this mission since 2001, the year Wikipedia was born, and it and has ratcheted up significant success in this endeavour.

What he said was very important to me, personally, since my father, the late Giani Gurdit Singh, published Parkash, a newspaper in Punjabi, and for some years in Urdu, from 1947-1978. It was a daily for many years, before turning into a weekly paper.

My father had a formidable collection of manuscripts, newspapers and books, but in part because of our having to move from one city to another, we do not have proper records of the paper of which he was the owner, printer, publisher and editor.

Since a few years, my mother, Mrs Inderjit Kaur, and I have tried to get copies of the newspaper, photocopies or otherwise. She is in touch with Sukhdev Singh of Ludhiana who has an archive of Singh Sabha Patrika, a monthly journal that my father edited from 1973 to 1988, but we have yet to come across someone who has preserved Parkash in this manner.

Naturally, as we were talking about the paper, my fingers got busy on the Internet, and in Google books I found a ‘Snippet view’ of an entry of Press in India (1965), published by the Registrar of Newspapers for India.  Under the heading Circulation Levels, it said: “Among Punjabi dailies, the Parkash from Chandigarh had the highest circulation (8,110) in 1964.”

Now I work for a newspaper that is also published from Chandigarh and has the highest circulation in the region. On the way to office, I often drive past the building where Parkash was printed.

Devinder told me that his colleagues had traced a kabari- wala who had many papers of the 1960s and the 1970s with him, and among them were copies of Parkash.

While I don’t exactly know how he managed to get such old papers, it seems that these are a part of an estate sale of someone who had been a collector of old newspapers. Thanks to his passion, something of the past has been salvaged. But it was almost lost.

“We almost had a fight with the kabari wala last night,” said Devinder.

“Why? Was it over how much he wanted?”

“He reneged on the deal we had made and wanted more,” was Devinder’s reply.

“How much did he want?”

“We had agreed to give him Rs 17 per kg, but he wanted more. He broke his word, but then I thought of the value of what he had and we went back to him today,” said the digital archivist, his outrage obvious.

Even as I was soothing ruffled feathers, my mind leapt at the possibilities of resurrecting the times and moods of those decades, and reading some of my father’s Rajnitak Kundilias, the satirical poems that were memorised by many and are still quoted.

Thanks to a dedicated archivist, and a deal that did not go sour. Musty bundles of old newspapers are being examined, and soon they will be scanned and made available on the Internet. A digital light will illuminate an era gone by, as seen through varied visions published in newspapers, including Parkash.

Middle on Parkash

The middle was published in published in The Tribune on January 24

Freedom comes in many hues, and for many of us, the word immediately makes us hum the George Michael 1984 song Freedom, which became the #1 hit by the British group Wham! It had lyrics that ran:

“I won’t let you down

I will not give you up

Gotta have some faith in the sound

It’s the one good thing that I’ve got

I won’t let you down

So please don’t give me up

Because I would really, really love to stick around.”

Remember the 1980s? It was still the time of landlines and in most Indian cities, the phone numbers were three to four digits, and if you thought of the big black phones and uncertain communications, the lyrics of the song seem to fit in rather well.

Phones then.... and now. Cartoon by Sandeep Joshi

In the telecommunication sector, there have been many significant landmarks even as consumers were liberated from the stranglehold of an octopus-like telecommunications department. Often, a look at history gives a better perspective to divining future.

Many readers will remember the days of the telephone, that black box which was literally the lifeline for the whole neighbourhood. The first flush of independence that many homes had was just getting a landline in the house, after an inordinately wait or through the good offices of a friendly politician like an MP or a Minister. No longer would you have to go to the neighbour’s house to attend to your phone call, you could say what you wanted in the privacy of your own home, without that annoying and pesky Auntiji listening to the conversation.

You had to be an Indian to understand why someone would get excited because he got an STD. Instead of a trip to the doctors, as was the case the world over, in India you celebrated when you got the Subscriber Trunk Dialling  facility. Of course, it was not simple, you went to the telephone exchange, filled in many forms, took in much official nakhra, and then had your form accepted.

When you got STD, you were liberated from booking trunk calls. Invariably, you booked an ‘urgent’ call and still waited the whole day for it to mature, unless it was an emergency and you made a ‘lightning’ call, at many times the cost of an ‘ordinary” call.

The ubiquitous ‘lineman’ kept you connected to the world beyond, and for this he demanded his pound of flesh, much as any Shylock would. You had to keep him happy, and pray that he did not do some jiggery-pokery that resulted in your paying the bills of someone else’s call. Of course, this was seen as an opportunity for some who got access to many ‘free’ calls at others’ expense.

For those unable to get the landlines, there came the STD Booths. No, they did not have any penicillin handy, they allowed ordinary millions to make phone calls, and so pleased were the voters that they even rewarded the Minister concerned by re-electing him, even after the CBI found that he found comfort in beds lined with currency notes.

So continued the merry dance, till came a new kid on the block. It was the cell phone, introduced in India in August 1995. This was an electronic gadget that you could use conveniently to drive a nail with, and one in which you paid as much as Rs 8 a minute to listen to a call. God help you some voluble called! People took to it like a duck to water, and so much so that the world was amazed at and the telecommunication pool became bigger and still bigger as more and more ducks started swimming in it.

What the cell phone meant at that time was freedom from the tyranny of the tangle of landlines. A flawed, sometimes dysfunctional, and often cacophonic freedom is infinitely better than being tied down, as we Indians especially know.

In time cell phones got better, they could actually be carried in your pocket instead of belt holsters originally associated with that wonderful weapon that tamed the Wild West: Colt 45.

The telecom players became better, and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India showed such teeth that even the Time magazine commented on its functioning. Of course, this was too good to last, but even as various shenanigans kept the telecom players, ministers and officials busy, the Indian consumer continued to enjoy among the lowest rates in the world.

Cell phones proliferated to such an extent and became so common that much to the photographers’ despair, pictures of rickshaw walas, sabzi walas, labourers, sadhus and what have you using cell phones ceased to be exotic.

Our self-worth was determined by the model of the cell phone we used. Services were added at a bewildering rate. Our musical choices were pandered to and we could load ring tones by the thousands, with nary a thought to those who would have to inadvertently listen to them.

The technical side of this revolution was that we became among the world leaders and Indian companies started looking for opportunities abroad. Many practises adopted by Indian companies are looked upon as best practises.

One thing that was certainly not looked at was the way the spectrum was auctioned, so much so that now forever the words ’3G’ and ‘scam’ come together. The Minister who is no longer there and his cohorts did not follow norms and have already been convicted in the court of public opinion, even as the Supreme Court and other bodies debate on legal issues.

3G will bring in much greater connectivity and will allow the phone to become a smart device, a computer, actually. In fact, the tech world has already started classifying smart phones as computers. Given the configuration of these phones, they are computers!

Now that number portability is a reality, we will be able to enjoy the benefits of better services, and at more competitive rates. Not everyone will change their numbers, but people can, if they want to do so. It’s all about making a choice. We like to choose because doing so affirms our fundamental belief that we are independent entities, that we have the ability to make choices.

Remember, to retain the land line under DOT rules, you had to pay a ‘deposit’ of Rs 10,000 so that your phone could be ‘suspended’ till you needed the number again. Now you have to pay Rs 19 to keep your phone number even as you change your service provider.

The empowerment of number portability, of choosing your phone service provider without giving up your phone number, is all about giving choice to the consumers. Whether they exercise it or not is their prerogative.

A shorter version of this article was published in The Tribune on January 24, 2011.

ਰੁਪਿੰਦਰ ਸਿੰਘ

ਟੈਕਨਾਲੌਜੀ ਨੇ ਸਾਡੀ ਜ਼ਿੰਦਗੀ ਦਾ ਮੁਹਾਂਦਰਾ ਹੀ ਬਦਲ ਦਿੱਤਾ ਹੈ। ਆਉਣ ਵਾਲੇ ਵਰ੍ਹੇ 2011 ਵੱਲ ਝਾਤ ਮਾਰਦਿਆਂ ਅਸੀਂ ਵੇਖਦੇ ਹਾਂ ਕਿ ਤਕਨੀਕ (ਈ- ਕ੍ਰਾਂਤੀ) ਸਾਡੇ ਰੋਜ਼ਮਰ੍ਹਾ ਦੇ ਰਹਿਣ-ਸਹਿਣ ਦਾ ਇਕ ਅਟੁੱਟ ਅੰਗ ਬਣ ਗਈ ਹੈ। ਇਕ ਅੰਦਾਜ਼ੇ ਮੁਤਾਬਕ ਜ਼ਿਆਦਾਤਰ ਭਾਰਤੀਆਂ ਤਕਰੀਬਨ 70 ਫੀਸਦੀ ਕੋਲ ਮੋਬਾਈਲ ਫੋਨ ਹਨ। ਹੋਰਨਾ ਦੇਸ਼ਾਂ ਦੇ ਮੁਕਾਬਲੇ ਭਾਰਤ ‘ਚ ਮੋਬਾਈਲ ਫੋਨ ਦੀ ਕਾਲ ਦਰ ਸਭ ਤੋਂ ਘੱਟ ਹੈ,ਜਿਸ ਕਰ ਕੇ ਅਸੀਂ ਵਡਮੁੱਲੀਆਂ ਸੇਵਾਵਾਂ ਦੀ ਵਧੇਰੇ ਆਸ ਕਰਦੇ ਹਾਂ। ਅੱਜ ਦੇ ਸਮੇਂ ‘ਚ ਉਸੇ ਚੀਜ਼ ਦੀ ਹੋਂਦ ਕਾਇਮ ਰਹੇਗੀ ਜਿਹੜੀ ਲੋਕਾਂ ਲਈ ਲਾਹੇਵੰਦ ਹੋਵੇਗੀ। ਸਥਾਨਕ ਮਾਰਕੀਟ ਵਿਚ ਡਿਜੀਟਲ ਤਕਨੀਕ ਦੇ ਦਾਖਲੇ ਨੂੰ ਵਧਾਉਣ ਲਈ ਲੋੜੀਂਦਾ ਹੁੰਗਾਰਾ ਮੋਬਾਈਲ ਫੋਨਾਂ ਵੱਲੋਂ ਪਾਇਆ ਜਾ ਰਿਹਾ ਹੈ। ਖਪਤਕਾਰਾਂ ਤਕ ਉਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਦੀ ਆਪਣੀ ਭਾਸ਼ਾ ਜ਼ਰੀਏ ਪਹੁੰਚ ਕਰ ਕੇ ਇਸ ਵਿਚ ਵਾਧਾ ਕੀਤਾ ਜਾ ਸਕਦਾ ਹੈ।
ਈ-ਪੁਸਤਕਾਂ ਚੰਗੀ ਤਰੱਕੀ ਕਰਨਗੀਆਂ। ਇਸ ਖੇਤਰ ‘ਚ ਹੋਰ ਬਹੁਤ ਕੁਝ ਵੇਖਣ ਨੂੰ ਮਿਲੇਗਾ। ਭਾਰਤ ਦੇ ਬਣੇ ‘ਵਿੰਕ’ ਦਾ ਮੁਕਾਬਲਾ ਐਪਲ ਆਈਪੈਡ,ਕਿੰਡਲ,ਨੂਕ ਤੇ ਸੋਨੀ ਈ- ਰੀਡਰ ਜਿਹੇ ਵਿਦੇਸ਼ੀ ਬ੍ਰਾਂਡਜ਼ ਨਾਲ ਹੈ ਜਿਹੜੇ ਇਥੇ ਸੌਖਿਆਂ ਹੀ ਉਪਲਬਧ ਹਨ। ਵਿੰਕ ਦੀ ਇਹ ਵਿਸ਼ੇਸ਼ਤਾ ਹੈ ਕਿ ਇਸ ਦਾ ਵਿਸ਼ਾ-ਵਸਤੂ14 ਭਾਰਤੀ ਭਾਸ਼ਾਵਾਂ ਵਿਚ ਉਪਲਬਧ ਹੈ।
ਯੂਨੀਕੋਡ ਦੇ ਮਾਪਦੰਡ ਅਪਣਾਉਣ ਕਰਕੇ ਭਾਰਤੀ ਭਾਸ਼ਾਵਾਂ ਵਿਚ ਮਿਲਦੇ    ਵਿਸ਼ਾ-ਵਸਤੂ ਨੂੰ ਅਸਾਨੀ ਨਾਲ ਕੰਪਿਊਟਰਾਂ ਤੇ ਹੋਰਨਾਂ ਉਪਕਰਣਾਂ ‘ਤੇ ਉਪਲਬਧ ਕਰਾਇਆ ਜਾ ਸਕਦਾ ਹੈ।  ਕੰਪਿਊਟਰ ਤੇ ਹੋਰਨਾਂ ਯੰਤਰਾਂ ਵਿਚ ਭਾਰਤੀ ਭਾਸ਼ਾਵਾਂ ਦਾ ਦਾਖਲਾ ਬਹੁਤ ਸੀਮਤ ਜਿਹਾ ਰਿਹਾ ਹੈ। ਹੁਣ ਤਕ ਹਿੰਦੀ ਦੇ 57,823, ਤੇਲਗੂ ਦੇ 45,963, ਮਰਾਠੀ ਦੇ 31,400, ਤਾਮਿਲ ਦੇ 25,263, ਗੁਜਰਾਤੀ ਦੇ 17,142 ਤੇ ਮਲਿਆਲਮ ਦੇ 14,830 ਲੇਖ ਆਨਲਾਈਨ ਉਪਲਬਧ ਹਨ।  ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਭਾਵੇਂ ਕਿ ਇਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਸਾਰੀਆਂ ਭਾਸ਼ਾਵਾਂ ਤੋਂ ਮੋਹਰੀ ਰਹੀ ਹੈ ਪਰ ਬਹੁਤ ਘੱਟ ਲੇਖ ਆਨਲਾਈਨ ਵੇਖਣ ਨੂੰ ਮਿਲਦੇ ਹਨ।
ਵਿਕੀਲੀਕਸ ਵੈੱਬਸਾਈਟ ਨੇ ਡਿਜੀਟਲ ਟੈਕਨਾਲੌਜੀ ਦੀ ਵਰਤੋਂ ਕਰਦਿਆਂ ਅਮਰੀਕੀ ਸਰਕਾਰ ਖਿਲਾਫ ਜਿਹੜਾ ਮੋਰਚਾ ਖੋਲ੍ਹਿਆ ਉਸ ਨਾਲ ਨਾ ਕੇਵਲ ਸਰਕਾਰ ਬਲਕਿ ਹੋਰਨਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਵੀ ਸ਼ਰਮਿੰਦਗੀ ਦਾ ਸਾਹਮਣਾ ਕਰਨਾ ਪਿਆ। ਵੈੱਬਸਾਈਟ ਕੋੋਲ ਅਜਿਹੇ ਕਈ ਦਸਤਾਵੇਜ਼ਾਂ ਦਾ ਭੰਡਾਰ ਹੈ ਜਿਹੜੇ ਆਉਂਦੇ ਕੁਝ ਦਿਨਾਂ ਵਿਚ ਜਨਤਕ ਕੀਤੇ ਜਾਣਗੇ। ਵੈੱਬਸਾਈਟ ਦੇ ਖੁਲਾਸਿਆਂ ਨੇ ਦੇਸ਼ਾਂ ਦੀ ਕੂਟਨੀਤੀ ਦਾ ਤਰੀਕਾ ਬਦਲ ਦਿੱਤਾ ਹੈ। ਜੇਕਰ ਇਸ ਵੈੱਬਸਾਈਟ ‘ਤੇ ਪਾਬੰਦੀ ਜਾਂ ਰੋਕ ਲਗਦੀ ਹੈ ਤਾਂ ਵੀ ਇਸ ਡਿਜੀਟਲ ਤਕਨੀਕ ਦੀ ਵਰਤੋਂ ਨਾਲ ਇਸ ਵੈੱਬਸਾਈਟ ਨੇ ਹੋਰ ਕਈ ਰਾਹ ਖੋਲ੍ਹ ਦਿੱਤੇ ਹਨ।
ਤਕਨਾਲੋਜੀ ਦੇ ਵੱਧਦੇ ਪ੍ਰਭਾਵ ਕਾਰਨ ਆਨਲਾਈਨ ਸ਼ਾਪਿੰਗ ਨੂੰ ਵੀ ਹੁਲਾਰਾ ਮਿਲਿਆ ਹੈ। ਪਿਛਲੇ ਸਾਲ ਅਪਰੈਲ ਤਕ 77 ਲੱਖ ਲੋਕਾਂ ਨੇ ‘ਇੰਡੀਅਨ ਰੇਲਵੇਜ਼’ ਦੀ ਵੈੱਬਸਾਈਟ ‘ਤੇ ਟਿਕਟਾਂ ਦੀ ਆਨਲਾਈਨ ਬੁਕਿੰਗ ਵਾਸਤੇ ਦਸਤਕ ਦਿੱਤੀ। ਅਸੀਂ ਘਰ ਬੈਠੇ ਹੀ ਸਿਨਮੇ ਦੀਆਂ ਟਿਕਟਾਂ ਬੁਕ ਕਰ ਸਕਦੇ ਹਾਂ। ਬੈਂਕਾਂ ਨਾਲ ਜੁੜਿਆ ਸਾਡਾ ਸਾਰਾ ਕਾਰੋਬਾਰ ਆਨਲਾਈਨ ਹੋ ਚੱਲਿਆ ਹੈ। ਜਿਵੇਂ ਜਿਵੇਂ ਅਸੀਂ ਆਪਣੇ ਆਪ ਨੂੰ ਇਸ ਅਨੁਸਾਰ ਢਾਲ ਲਵਾਂਗੇ ਇਸ ਰੁਝਾਨ ਵਿਚ ਹੋਰ ਵਾਧਾ ਹੁੰਦਾ ਜਾਵੇਗਾ।
ਅਸੀਂ ਇਹ ਮੰਨਦੇ ਹਾਂ ਕਿ ਇਕ ਉਹ ਸਮਾਂ ਸੀ ਜਦੋਂ ਸਾਨੂੰ ਵਾਈ-ਫਾਈ ‘ਚੋਂ ਬਾਹਰ ਆਉਣਾ ਪਿਆ ਪਰ ਵੱਧਦੀਆਂ ਕੀਮਤਾਂ (ਖਾਸਕਰ ਪੈਟਰੋਲ ਦੀਆਂ) ਨੇ ਮੱਧ ਵਰਗ ਨੂੰ ਤਕੜਾ ਝਟਕਾ ਦਿੱਤਾ ਹੈ। ਅਸਮਾਨ ਛੂੰਹਦੀਆਂ ਤੇਲ ਕੀਮਤਾਂ ਦੇ ਮੱਦੇਨਜ਼ਰ ਲੋਕ ਬਿਜਲਈ ਕਾਰਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਤਰਜੀਹ ਦੇਣਗੇ। ਬੈਟਰੀ ਨਾਲ ਚੱਲਣ ਵਾਲੀ ਰੇਵਾ ਭਾਵੇਂ ਚੰਗਾ ਵਿਕਲਪ ਹੈ ਪਰ ਬੈਠਣ ਦੀ ਸਮਰੱਥਾ ਘਟ ਹੋਣ ਕਰਕੇ ਸਫਲ ਨਹੀਂ ਹੋ ਸਕੀ। ਮਹਿੰਦਰਾ ਦੇ ਇਸ ਖੇਤਰ ‘ਚ ਆਉਣ ਨਾਲ ਰੇਵਾ ਨੂੰ ਕੁਝ ਹੁਲਾਰਾ ਮਿਲਣ ਦੀ ਸੰਭਾਵਨਾ ਹੈ। ਹਿਉਂਦਈ,ਜਨਰਲ ਮੋਟਰਜ਼ ਤੇ ਟਾਟਾ ਵੱਲੋਂ ਵੀ ਨੇੜ ਭਵਿੱਖ ਵਿਚ ਬਿਜਲਈ ਕਾਰਾਂ ਬਾਜ਼ਾਰ ਵਿਚ ਲਿਆਉਣ ਦੀ ਯੋਜਨਾ ਹੈ।
ਇੰਟਰਨੈੱਟ ਸਾਡੀ ਜ਼ਿੰਦਗੀ ਦਾ ਅਟੁੱਟ ਅੰਗ ਬਣ ਚੁੱਕਾ ਹੈ। ਉਹ ਲੋਕ ਜਿਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਦੀ ਅਜੇ ਤਕ ਇੰਟਰਨੈੱਟ ਤਕ ਰਸਾਈ ਸੰਭਵ ਨਹੀਂ ਹੋਈ ਉਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਵੀ ਕੋਈ ਨਾ ਕੋਈ ਜ਼ਰੀਆ ਲੱਭ ਕੇ ਇਸ ਨਾਲ ਜੁੜਨ ਦੀ ਲੋੜ ਹੈ।

-ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਰੂਪ: ਅਮਰਪ੍ਰੀਤ ਸਿੰਘ

This article was printed in the Punjabi Tribune on January 24, 2011.

This article is a translation of an article in English on Technology which was printed in the New Year Supplement of  The Tribune titled 2011 The Year of Reckoning. If you haven’t read it, please click here to read this really great edition.

In 1930, the first definitive encyclopaedia in Punjabi, Gurshabad Ratnakar Mahankosh, was published. Written by Bhai Kahan Singh of Nabha, it was one of the earliest works of its kind, and is still the standard reference book consulted by all serious researchers, who wish to know more about Sikh religion, customs, heritage and ethos. Today we can access this encyclopaedia online and a PDF version of the volume can be downloaded at http://www.rarasahib.com/ downloads.htm.

We all know that the most accessed online encyclopaedia is Wikipedia, and on January 15 it celebrated its 10 years. Wikipedia is accessed by millions of users; the site has grown from nothing to around 1.7 crore articles. Out of this, 35 lakh are in English.

Wikipedia is making a major push to add more Indian content and it has you know, there are only 67,171 articles in Hindi. Though Punjabi was an early entrant (since 2003) it is yet to make a significant presence. As of now, there are 2,803 users and 1,949 articles, but only 27 contributors to the Punjabi wiki. By the way, there are close to 1,500 articles in Sanskrit.

Why? We really can’t say, but let’s make the effort to make a difference this time by writing for Wikipedia in Punjabi and Hindi. We must generate more content that people can use and be enlightened about. The procedure for adding content is rather simple, and you will have the ‘early-bird’ advantage. Please log on at http://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki to see the Punjabi and at http://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki for the Hindi home page.

While the quality of the Wikipedia articles is not consistent, there is no doubt that the encyclopaedia is consistently the top resource for those who are looking for information. In fact, this is where you can help, you contribute to sharing your knowledge with others, and for this you get their gratitude and the pride of a job well done.

I would also appeal to various educational institutions, schools, colleges and universities, to get the students and the faculty involved in contributing to Wikipedia, in English as well as in the other languages.

Punjabi University, Patiala, is one of the few universities in the world to be named after a language. It has an excellent Advanced Centre for Technical Development of Punjabi. The department has done significant work in taking Punjabi to the world of computers.

Now, we have competence in Punjabi computing. Along with it there is a commitment to the Punjabi language, which is the core of the charter of Punjabi University, Patiala. It is thus only fitting that the intellectual resources of this university should now be harnessed to publish more informative articles, in Punjabi for the online world. The university has been working on a project to translate Gurshabad Ratnakar Mahankosh, and thus from a Mahankosh to an online Vishavkosh is a natural progression.

The Mahankosh and the Wikipedia models are very different, but represent significant attempts to share knowledge with the world and enlighten readers. If we want to to be recognized by the world, we must share what we have, so that they can appreciate it.

No doubt there will be problems adjusting to a democratic resource where anyone can challenge and change what you write, but then, this particular Wikipedia attribute has stood the test of time, and has proved again and again how even if someone mischievously changes some information, others correct it and eventually the collaborative effort brings forth objectivity and transparency.

By the way, even as far as revision is concerned, even Bhai Kahan Singh revised Gurshabad Ratnakar Mahankosh, himself, before publishing the next edition.

By contributing to Wikipedia, we will learn much ourselves and also put online knowledge about ourselves to the rest of the world. Will it make the world a better place? Let’s wait and watch!

This Bits about Bytes column by Roopinder Singh was published in the Lifestyle section of The Tribune on Januar 17, 2010

It was fantastic to see how Chandigarhians related to the works given in this international touring exhibition of Australian indigenous artwork, which was inaugurated by the Australian High Commissioner to India, Mr Peter Varghese, on Friday, January 14, 2011.

The Tribune had co-sponsored the event, which drew in many eminent persons, including Justice SS Sodhi and Mrs Bonny Sodhi, Prof B N Goswamy, Prof Shelley Walia, the famous artist Shiv Singh.

Before the exhibition I had a chance to work with Kathryn Deyell, first secretary, public affairs and culture, Australian High Commission and Aparna Gupta of the High Commission. Dedicated, they rolled up their sleeves and were hard at work in the museum, arranging the paintings, setting up the explanatory placards, planning and executing all the work.

When we met on the exhibition day, we were all togged up, and double-takes followed.

Diasporic issues: High Commissioner Peter Varghese, Editor-in-Chief Raj Chengappa and Roopinder Singh at the Balgo art exhibition in Chandigarh

As the brochure says: “The acrylic paintings that emerged from Balgo, deep in the Western Desert of Central Australia, first appeared in the 1980s. The paintings shook up what the world understood as ‘traditional’ indigenous art. Bold, bright and colourful, the paintings told stories of the land – what indigenous Australians call ‘county’ – in a way that seemed utterly modern, apparently abstract, and quite exceptional.”

When I asked the eminent art historian, Prof B N Goswamy, what he thought of the paintings, he said was reminded of the art of Peru and that of the Maoris of New Zealand as he looked that the works.

Fun time: Enjoying the Balgo art exhibition, from left are Rumina Sethi, Jaspreet Waraich, Rene Singh and Shelley Walia

As Jaspreet and I admired the paintings, a thought came of how wonderful it was that cultures that were certainly not geographically contagious somehow had a consciousness that transcended their physical distances and found its expression in a way which brought out their connection.

Editor-in-Chief Raj Chengappa introduced me to High Commissioner and we chatted about the Sikh diaspora’s old connection with Australia, along with other things. An interesting subject that needs should be explored.

This abstract art touched the hearts of many who had come to view it. Some of the modern art leaves me cold, but here was something that had vibrancy and warmth. Diwan Manna, secretary, Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi who had organised a lecture of the Paris based artist Sakti Burman, put in a brief appearance, and also graciously delayed the lecture a bit so that people could visit the exhibition.

Togged up after toiling: From left, Kathryn Deyell, First Secretary, Public Affairs and Culture, Australian High Commission, Roopinder Singh, Aparna Gupta Project Officer and my better half, Jaspreet Waraich.

Many friends had come, including Karanbir and Poonam, Aradhika, Gupi Bhattal, and three generations of the Vig family, Mrs Vig, Sidharth, Anant and the young Purvai.

The exhibition is at the Government Museum and Art Gallery from 15-23 January 2011 and I would certainly recommend that you see it.

OH! Google, that child of cyber space, finally came out with its electronic book store, which promises to create yet another revolution in the way people use their screens, on computers and other devices, like cell phones, e-book readers and what have you.

A screen grab of the Home page of the Google Books website

Google has finally made an entry into the world dominated by Amazon.com Inc, a company founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, which started as an online bookstore, but morphed into an online marketplace for DVDs, toys, CDs, MP3 downloads, computer software, electronics, apparel, video games and even furniture.

Amazon Kindle, an e-book reader that the company launched in November 2007, slowly changed the way people read books and a year later, Amazon’s Kindle-based library included two lakh titles.

The publishing world and the public at large were shaken up when in July 2010 Amazon announced that e-book sales outnumbered sales of hardcover books. The latest figures say that the company sells as many as 180 digital books for every 100 hardcover books.

Coupled with the enormous success of the i-Pad as an e-book reader, with Nook by Barnes and Noble and Sony e-book reader, there is a growing number of platforms for e-books and now Google has entered the game.

Actually, Google has been digitizing books since 2004 and has the largest digital library in the world, some 1.2 crore books and counting. They have been putting their copyright-free books and magazines like ‘Life’ online for years.

The new project, however, is different, it allows readers to buy or download free books and sync them across various platforms, thus you can read it on a computer in office, continue reading the book on your Internet-enabled cell phone while commuting, and then boot up your home computer to read on…. Sounds alluring, and thought most of us are usually so tired of watching the computer screen in office that the last thing we want to do is read from another screen.

While publishers debate about whether e-books will allow self-published volumes to swamp cyberspace and bemoan the inevitable loss of quality that will follow, I was quite amused to see the first title that Google Books had made available for the new service. It was the Jane Austen classic ‘Pride and Prejudice’, digitized in 2007 from the volume published by R. Bentley, in 1853.

Ah, the pride I felt at this selection. For me, the debate was settled there and then. Quality writing is timeless; it will always win, no matter which format it is presented in. The permanence of word written well transcends media, and indeed, limitations of time, too.

This middle by Roopinder Singh was published in The Tribune on January 11, 2011.

Speed, content, Internet penetration, more languages, better platforms, hi-res screens — Indians want it all

Roopinder Singh

TECHNOLOGY transforms lives and as we look at the year ahead, we see many ways in which it will make inroads into the way we live our day-to-day life. Most Indians own a mobile phone, 70 per cent according to one estimate. Indian mobile phone rates are among the lowest in the world, and thus we expect even more value-added services. Only what people will find useful will survive, not bloatware. On the other hand, mobile phones will provide the needed fillip to increase the digital penetration of the vernacular market. Growth will be increased by reaching out to the users in their languages.

e-books will make a huge progress. More and more dedicated devices are making inroads. The Indian offering Wink competes with a plethora of imported devices, including the Apple iPad, Kindle, Nook and Sony e-reader, all of which are available here. Wink had the added advantage of offering content in 14 Indian languages! As cell phones become smarter, they are going to be used also as e-book readers, further adding to the appeal of these e-books.

Indian language content will also become less of babble because of increasing adoption of Unicode standards which will make the electronic content generated in these languages accessible to various computers and other devices. Till now, the penetration of Indian languages has been low. So far Hindi has 57,823 articles, Telugu 45,963, Marathi 31,400, Tamil 25,263, Gujarati 17,142 and Malayalam 14,830. Punjabi was an early mover, but not much content has been posted online.

An insurgency of the digital kind was unleashed by the WikiLeaks website. Its exposes embarrassed the US government, and many who dealt with them. The website has a huge trove of documents which it is threatening to release in the coming months. Wikileaks has changed the way diplomacy will be conducted, and even if it is shut down, expect something like it to come up in its place.

Net shopping is on the rise as Indians seek convenience and bargains online. The Indian Railways’ website for online booking of tickets was the top travel website in India, with 77 lakh visitors last April. We book our cinema tickets online, have started doing our banking online, with increasing adaption and greater discounts, this trend will rise.

We admit that there are times when we have to move out of WiFi range, but rising prices, especially of petrol, have hit middle class homes hard. Many people want to go for the electric car option, and in the coming year, there will be many offerings. R

eva had an early advantage, but could not muster the numbers. With Mahindra coming in, Reva will get a fillip and provide a green and cheap mode of transport for Indian commuters. Expect new models from them and other electric car versions from established internal combustion engine players like Hyundai, GM and Tata.

We already have the building blocks of our cyber future; we will get better computers, more engaging games and more informative software in the coming year. The Internet, already a part of our lives, will become indispensable; even those people who do not have access to it will use it, through others.

This article on Technology was printed in the New Year Supplement of  The Tribune titled 2011 The Year of Reckoning. If you haven’t read it, please click here to read this really great edition.

People are going to access the Internet in their mother tongue in greater numbers as it becomes more and more pervasive. In India, we have many languages that are mother tongues of our people, and in the recent centuries, English has emerged as the lingua franca, which means a language used to communicate between persons who “do not share a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons’ mother tongues”.

The Dainik Tribune website's homepage translated from Hindi to Urdu

Since English is also the lingua franca of the Internet, we have an advantage of a significant base of English-speaking individuals and thus we have been able to make major inroads in the world of information technology, where English rules. Here we have a distinct advantage over China, something that is now being steadily eroded because of the emphasis that China is placing on teaching the English language to its students.

In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Juliet says: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

What about rose in any other language, it not only smells the same, it is also a major literary device used by poets in other languages with as much élan.

What would Urdu poetry be without references to gulab? But how would we read Urdu poetry if we don’t know the language? In English translation? Much would be lost. What if  we could read Urdu script in Hindi language? We would be nearer the original in culture and context. Gulab would still be gulab, but it would be written in a script that many would not be able to read.

Now, some computer scientists have been working on making people understand and read information that has been originally given in a language that is neither their mother tongue, nor English.

The Advanced Centre for Technical Development of Punjabi, Punjabi University Patiala, has recently released an Urdu to Devnagari script conversion software. It also does the reverse, i.e. from Devnagri to Urdu…and it works on websites.

Dr Gurpreet Singh Lehal, director and chief coordinator of the project, demonstrated the software here in my office and indeed, the results were impressive. We saw how the Urdu newspaper from Pakistan like the Daily Jung, Nawai Waqt and Afsana were rendered in Hindi. He also converted the Dainik Tribune website into Urdu.

One can also write an email in Urdu and it will be delivered in Hindi at other end and similarly email sent in Hindi can be read in Urdu.

Dr Lehal said that his programme had been funded by The Information Society Innovation Fund (ISIF), which emphasises on applying Internet technology for the benefit of Asia-Pacific users and communities. The project was awarded to Punjabi University in 2009 after a competition in which 148 competitors from 22 countries participated.

In a credible 18 month the team comprising Dr Lehal, Dr Virinder Singh Kalra from Manchester University UK and Tejinder Singh Saini from Punjabi University, completed the project, which is now freely available on the Centre’s website (http://uh.learnpunjabi.org). We must remember that there are differences in the way Devnagri and Arabic scripts render sounds, and thus this is not a simple case of transliterating which can introduce various howlers. Dr Lehal pointed out that the main challenges had been restoring the missing diacritical marks in Urdu text, resolving the lexical ambiguities in these languages, both at the level of characters and words. Dealing with split/merged words in Urdu script and the issue of multiple/zero equivalence of characters in the two scripts also proved challenging.

Dr Lehal claims that the current system has been tested on more than 200 documents and the word level transliteration accuracy has been found to be 98.03 per cent and 99.15 per cent for Urdu-Hindi and Hindi-Urdu transliteration systems, respectively. That would make it a hot contender for the best system in terms of transliteration accuracy.

It is interesting that a university dedicated to Punjabi has become a bridge between two other languages-Urdu and Hindi. I am sure that this software developed by the university will provide a bridge between people who have a natural cultural affinity, but are divided by the ignorance of each other’s script.

The article is the latest in the column Bits about Bytes, published in the Lifestyle section of The Tribune on January 4, 2020.