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What do you think about the prevalent feeling that the IT industry has failed? It cannot be said that the IT industry has failed. It is facing a temporary setback, to put it properly. What we have been concentrating in India thus far is to cultivate basic skills and talents and the students have also been studying aimlessly just anything and everything that is dished out to them under the label, IT. It is IT. That is sufficient for them. And then they dabble into every conceivable area and do not specialise. There are hundreds of computer institutes today and they do not train the students properly. What they teach does not square up the knowledge that the students acquire. The other day a girl known to me came here, seeking my help in securing a job. She claimed that she knew commerce and Java. To think of it, she has really not specialised in either Java or commerce. In the present circumstances, it is only natural that we are not able to match international quality in IT. But the current setback has actually set everyone thinking. There sure will be a revival in IT, very soon. What new dimensions do you think that the IT industry will take in the next five years? IT will vanish in the next five years. It won't be a separate department of study by itself. Instead there will be newer branches of studies like IT Mechanical, IT Engineer, IT Biology etc. Information Technology will meld itself into other Departments of studies. IT will no longer be a separate branch. What is the Tamil Virtual University is doing now? The Tamil Virtual University is in a very preliminary stage. We have received applications from people belonging to 65 different countries. This is more than what we expected. It is a happy augury that this has happened within such a short space of time of the commencement of the Virtual University. We are discussing on the syllabi, fee, modes of conducting exams etc. We also intend to select a few universities from these 65 countries and would decide on the modalities soon. Where does Tamil Nadu stand in IT, as compared to other States? Well, our state has been leading others in terms of PC and Internet usage. This may be due to the fact that for the past ten years and more Tamilians living aboard and scholars in Tamil Nadu have been working in a well co-ordinate manner. There are not as many e-zines in other languages as compared to Tamil. In fact many software developers are giving prime importance to Hindi and Tamil only, among all Indian languages. Is it possible to conduct e-commerce through Tamil? No. It is possible only in English. It may be possible if your market is restricted only to Tamil Nadu and other Tamil speaking regions. Let's take for example. Supposing someone wants to sell an artefact like the Thanjavur doll, he or she has to interact only in English. That is the present situation. But e-commerce through Tamil is possible, locally.
We cannot force anyone to use particular kinds of fonts only. More over, they make their own fonts and where is the control over anyone to bring uniformity? It will take some time. Soon a situation will arise when none has to worry about the type of font used. We will have to bear with the present state of affairs until then. At what stage does the work on speech synthesiser in Tamil stand now? There are problems in developing speech synthesiser in Tamil. You see, there are two kinds - text to speech and speech to text. The consonantal structure of Tamil and English are not similar. Therefore, it is difficult to convert it in English, at least for the present. And then there are differences of pitch etc. between the way men speak and women speak. Standardisation of speech pattern is another challenge that has to be faced. We have allocated necessary funds to the Tamil Software research organisation. Research is going on. We believe that it will function well within the coming few years. What about Optical Character Recognition (OCR) in Tamil? We are working on making OCR function very well in Tamil. Presently words are stored in database and are selected based on the pronunciation of each word. When this is fully operational, the sight and hearing impaired would also be able to use the PC. What do you think of the way Word Processors in Tamil function? There are countless Word Processors in Tamil available now. Most of them match DTP capabilities. There are word processors like Kamban, Padami, Ilango etc., which are feature rich. What is the current status on laying of Optical Fibre Cable? The work is being carried on by Sterling and Reliance. It is expected that this work will be over within the next six months in the cities. I strongly believe that this will help the trade and education to a very great extent. It is said that of all the States, only Andhra Pradesh is getting more finance and income for IT related works……… The fact is that Tamil Nadu is getting more funds from foreign countries, as compared to other States. It is natural that every State claims that it is receiving the highest share as compared to others. Take for instance, our total earning through software exports amounted to about two crores in 1993-94. But in the year 2000-2001, it is in the vicinity of 3116 crores. Bangalore tops the list with 39% of the funding. And then it is followed by Tamil Nadu with 37% while Andhra gets around 6%. Remember not a single State can boast something like the TIDEL Park. That goes to show that Tamil Nadu stands in the forefront. What is your suggestion to integrate the efforts on all States to benefit the country as a whole? We should have something like the Silicon Valley in the US. An IT triangle should be set up among Tamil Nadu, Andhra and Karnataka. We should use their technology and they should use ours. It is only after we co-ordinate our efforts that we will be able to succeed in the international market. What happened to the Government's plan to take PC to the common man?
What does the future hold for Tamil in Internet? The future computers will be designed in such a way that anyone, who knows only Tamil, can operate and take advantage of them. Even a farmer can send e-mail to his son in the States. You can browse through the price of vegetables in the Koyambedu market, very soon. Knowledge of English would not be a precondition for using computers. --Saravanan
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He is a dynamic personality who has contributed very significantly as the former Vice Chancellor of the Anna University, who is still leading the
Tamil Nadu research centre for advanced studies as its President and advisor of the
Committees for advanced education at the national level. He is the President of the
International forum for Information Technology. And he was the advisor of the former Chief Minister on Information Technology. Dr. M. Anandakrishnan. There is not a single area in information technology that has not received his attention or contribution. A person who has thrown himself whole-heartedly into whatever role he has accepted. We present his ideas on various facets of IT.
The various portals and websites in Tamil use many different kinds of fonts and people feel that it is difficult to read or print the material provided by them. What do you think is the solution?
That is a programme, which is being implemented by the Central Government. Making a PC available to each individual is nothing more than a dream now. The reality is that we can bring it closer to the common man. We have to wake up to a new kind of situation that is going to prevail soon. People with no knowledge of computers would in the future be considered nothing more than illiterates.
