"The historical geography that Kapil Sibal erased may seem like a minor issue that can be set right easily. But it is deeply problematic at two levels. First, the story of the development of Indic fonts and Indic publishing systems for Urdu is an intercontinental story of social classes, exchanges, trade, trespasses and treachery. It is also the story of a period in Indian history where computing technology was driven by the needs of Indian market rather than by global outsourcing agencies. As a result, we witnessed a tremendous amount of innovation in the development of dedicated systems that identified and addressed large and small problems in Indian society, institutions and markets, created livelihoods and transformed neighborhoods. There are important political and economic and cultural lessons to be learnt from that decade."
Posted on: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 15:13:06 +0000