Centre for Internet and Society

Wiki Media Foundation keen on developing Urdu Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2014-11-01T13:23:54Z

The Wikipedia India Community Consultation 2014 was organized by the Wiki Media Foundation (WMF) and Wikipedia India Chapter in collaboration with Centre for Internet Society (CIS A2K) Bangalore on The venue was Movenpick Hotel and scheduled for October 4th and 5th here.

The article was published in the Siasat Daily on October 24, 2014.

The objectives of the meet up according to the organizers are “to share views and preferences on the most effective ways to pursue our shared vision of creating and sharing free knowledge in India and in the Indian languages, and to arrive at an agreement on a road map for a future where its resources are better utilized, its volunteers are better served and progress on its mission is more steadily attained. “

I reached Bangalore on 3rd October and invited Urdu speaking people and the Urdu media from Bangalore for a general meet up. Mr. Azeez Belgaumi a renowned Urdu Poet & writer and Mr. Syed Tanveer Ahmed, as senior Journalist heading “Karnataka Muslims” News portal approached me and we had a good conversation to know more about Urdu Wikipedia. They appreciated Wikipedia and promised to extend their support to the Urdu Wikipedia.

Mr. Syed Tanveer Ahmed and Mr. Azeez Belgaumi promised to take up the initiative to conduct some Wiki workshops in collaboration with Salam foundation and CIS A2K. Mr. Vishnu the Project Director CIS has also agreed to extend his best support to organize the outreach programmes in Bengaluru and other parts of India to develop Urdu Wikipedia.

An introductory meeting was held in the evening of 3rd October in which members of WMF and the Wikipedians representing languages viz. English, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Odia, Assamese, Kannada, Konkani, Sanskrit, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi, and Gujarati attended.

On 4th October after noon the scheduled meet up was conducted wherein WMF Senior Director Grantmaking Mrs. Anasuya Sengupta from US, Head of Wikimedia Grants & Global South Partnerships Mr. Asaf Bartov from US, Chief Financial Officer Mr. Garfiled Byrd from France and Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees Mr. Petricio Lorente from Argentina Trustee Bishakha Datta participated. Mr. Gagan Sethi from Counterviews Gujarat facilitated the programme.

The Indic language bureaucrats, sysops and representatives participated actively and focused on the topic how to improve the Wikipedia in Indic languages. This session gone up to 7 p.m. and in the night too, the delegates had the get together to discuss on various issued related to Wikimedia programmes in India.

On the 5th October morning the work shop continued with dignified discussions. Various user groups from different languages took part and presented their views and successes. The discussions focused on wiki tools, various practical problems, do’s and don’ts. It’s a fabulous meet to take part, comprehend, and show the spirit of volunteerism towards Wikipedia.

During discussion on Urdu language, Mr. Asaf appreciated the contributions of Mr. Muhammad Shuaib. Mr. Nisar Ahmed Syed administrator in Telugu Wikipedia represented Urdu Wikipedia too as he is a contributor to Urdu Wikipedia. He discussed issues and stressed the need of outreach and developmental activities for Urdu Wikipedia in India. Mr. Muzammil Ahmed from Hindi and Urdu Wikipedia advocated its importance.

Ms. Anasuya and Mr. Asaf Bartov accepted the need of Urdu Wiki development programmes in India and they said they are ready to prepare a road map for the same.

Finally with the initiations of Mr. Nisar Ahmed Syed and with the kind cooperation of Mr. Asaf Bartov and Mrs. Anasuya Sengupta, an Urdu user group was set and introduced. The user group initially was gathered by backing of Mr. Asaf Bartov. The group has Mr. Syed Nisar Ahmed (Pune), Mr. Muzammil Ahmed (Hyderabad), Mr. Azeez Belgaumi (Bengaluru) and Mr. Satdeep Gil (Punjab).

The contributions of Muzammil Ahmed and Nisar Ahmed to Urdu Wikipedia were appreciated. The WMF team thanked all the Urdu users from India who rendered their best contributions.

Emphasis was laid to improve the Urdu Wikipedia India group.

As WMF intends to focus on the online encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA in the Indian languages Urdu users too expressed willingness to work for the mother tongue Urdu by enriching Urdu Wikipedia.

Mr. Nisar Ahmed said, “It is true that the awareness among the Urdu speaking community about Urdu Wikipedia is very less.” He emphasized the need to take a small step to lead to a large extent to bring awareness by means of outreach programmes, meet ups, seminars. It was accepted and appreciated to initiate outreach work among the Urdu speaking states and clusters in India.

In India about 450 newspapers and magazines are being published in Urdu language. And it is an amazing fact that many of the Urdu newspapers are using the Wikipedia as their source material from English Wikipedia as it has a large and authentic content, but they are not aware about the need to enrich Urdu Wikipedia. It should be known that everyone can edit, resource and enrich it. Hence it is decided to start a user group for Urdu Wikipedia India and to bring the same message to the masses.

“Bring Urdu Wikipedia from budding stage to a blooming stage.”Courtesy:Karnataka Muslims

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/siasat-daily-october-24-2014-wiki-media-foundation-keen-on-developing-urdu-wikipedia

Wiki Media Foundation keen on developing Urdu Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2014-11-01T13:29:32Z

The article by Nisar Ahmed Syed was originally published on the website of Karnataka Muslims on October 22, 2014.

India Community Consultation 2014 held in Bangalore

Ms. Anasuya and Mr. Asaf Bartov accepted the need of Urdu Wiki development programmes in India and they said they are ready to prepare a road map for the same.

The contributions of Muzammil Ahmed and Nisar Ahmed to Urdu Wikipedia were appreciated. The WMF team thanked all the Urdu users from India who rendered their best contributions.

Emphasis was laid to improve the Urdu Wikipedia India group.

As WMF intends to focus on the online encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA in the Indian languages Urdu users too expressed willingness to work for the mother tongue Urdu by enriching Urdu Wikipedia.

“Bring Urdu Wikipedia from budding stage to a blooming stage.”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/karnataka-muslims-nisar-ahmed-syed-october-22-2014-wiki-media-foundation-keen-on-developing-urdu-wikipedia

Converting from nonUnicode (Nudi, Baraha, ...) font encoding to Unicode Kannada

pavanaja — 2016-10-23T15:36:25Z

People have been using computers for typing and printing Kannada text for more than 25 years. Most of the usage of Kannada on computers was limited to the DTP arena.

People made use of packages like PageMaker (Version 6.5 or 7) to type and compose pages. Even now, many people still use these packages for Kannada DTP work. The text entered into these packages is stored as font glyph codes rather than character encodings. Non-Unicode truetype fonts like Nudi, Baraha, ShreeLipi, Akruti, etc, are some of the most popular fonts being used.

The system does not understand these characters as Kannada characters. Any text based operations like search, replace, sorting, spell-check, text-to-speech, etc, are not possible with this kind of text. Employing Unicode for all digitisation works of Kannada text solves this problem. Usage of Unicode for Kannada has become prominent only recently. All websites like Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Wikisource, etc, want the text only in Unicode. There is still a large amount of text entered and stored with old non-Unicode font based encodings. These are mostly present in the form of PageMaker files. This blog post explains the process of converting the text present in PageMaker into Kannada Unicode text.

The Kannada and Culture Department of the Government of Karnataka have released Unicode complaint open-type fonts and Unicode based software for Kannada under GPL. These are available for free download on their website (http://kannadasiri.co.in/index/software). Download and
install “Ascii to Unicode Kannada Converter” from this page. This software works only in Windows. Now you are ready to convert the text from PageMaker file into Unicode.

Open the PageMaker file. Select the Text tool depicted by a big “T” shaped icon. Click anywhere in the text area. Select the entire text (Ctrl-A followed by Ctrl-C). Now open Notepad and paste this text into that (press Ctrl-V). The text will appear gibberish in Notepad. Don’t worry about it. Save the file as plain text file (.TXT file). Remember where you have saved the file.

Now run the “Kannada ASCII Unicode Converter” software. In the first textbox enter the name of the ASCII file to be converted (the file you just saved from Notepad). In the bottom textbox enter a filename for the Unicode text file that will be created by the software. Select the default “GOK (Kuvempu Nudi Baraha)”, or other encoding as the case may be, as the encoding from which the text has to be converted. Click on the button written “ಪರಿವರ್ತಿಸಿ”. It will show the progress of conversion.

Once the conversion is complete, it will display an appropriate message to indicate completion of the conversion. If you open the text file created by the software, it will have the text converted into Unicode. This text can be used in Wikisource, Wikipedia, etc.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/converting-from-non-unicode-nudi-baraha-font-encoding-to-unicode-kannada

Tulu Wikipedia Workshop cum Editathon at Udupi

pavanaja — 2014-10-31T14:54:07Z

A three-day programme was held at Udupi from October 15 to 17, 2014 with an aim to increase the presence of Tulu in the online world. The first day comprised the inauguration programme and a workshop to understand the Wiki markup. The next two days were devoted to the edit-a-thon where participants added articles to Tulu Wikipedia.

The team comprised 18 girls from the Government PU College, Udupi and some other women. The event was organised by Tulu Sahitya Academy and sponsored by MGM College, Udupi and the Regional Research Centre, Udupi. Janaki Brahmavar, Chairperson of Tulu Sahitya Academy, presided over the function. She spoke about the efforts being made to add Tulu in Unicode. Jayakar Shetty, President Tulu Okkoota, expressed his happiness over the fact that it was a batch of about 20 girls who participated in the workshop cum edit-a-thon. There is a grouse that male editors far outnumber females in editing Wikipedia. This could be one instance where only female editors actively added articles to Tulu Wikipedia over three days. The programme was well covered by the print and television media. The good news is that the girls who participated in the edit-a-thon have continued adding articles. As on October 26, 2014, the total number of articles in Tulu Wikipedia has gone up to 574.

Tulu is one of the Dravidian languages spoken primarily by people from the south coast of Karnataka and north coast of Kerala[1]. As per the Census of 2001, there were 1,722,768 Tulu speakers [2]; figures of 2011 census are still not available. There are a lot of Tulu-speaking people residing outside Karnataka and Kerala in Mumbai, Goa and Gulf countries. It is estimated that the total number of Tulu-speaking people is more than 2.5 million. There has been a long-standing demand to include Tulu in the 8^th Schedule of the Constitution of India[3], [4]. Tulu had its own script long ago, it is not in use. Currently, Tulu is written in the Kannada script. Tulu has a vast vocal tradition, and there is a huge collection of knowledge that is transferred across generations orally. Efforts are being made to document this vocal tradition. The history of Tulu literature has already been documented in Kannada. Recently, the Karnataka government introduced Tulu as an optional language for schools in Mangalore and Udupi districts. However, these students don't have many books to read apart from the prescribed textbooks. There are some Tulu books in the creative writing domain, but there is hardly any book of an encyclopaedic nature in Tulu language which the students can refer to. This is where Tulu Wikipedia becomes extremely significant.

Tulu Wikipedia has been in incubation since 2007[5]. Some editing activities in Tulu Wikipedia were carried out during 2007-08. But the initial momentum gradually subsided, and most editors stopped editing. Tulu Wikipedia thereafter went into a dormant status. During the Alvas Vishwa Nudisiri Programme at Moodabidre in December 2013, Dr BA VivekaRai, former vice-chancellor of Kannada University, who was the President of the cultural and literary meet, dwelt at length on the importance of implementing Tulu language in technology. This was followed by a talk by Dr UB Pavanaja, a member of the CIS-A2K team. He continued from where Viveka Rai left off, and talked about bringing world knowledge in Tulu, rejuvenating Tulu Wikipedia, and pressuring the state and Union governments towards including Tulu in the 8^th Schedule of the Constitution.

Subsequently, a workshop on editing Tulu Wikipedia was held at Mangalore on January 19 this year under the leadership and initiative of Dr BA VivekaRai. This was followed by another edit-a-thon at Mangalore on April 5 and another workshop at Udupi on May 25. All these efforts have given a new impetus to Tulu Wikipedia. The number of articles in Tulu Wikipedia was 147 as in March 2014, which went up to 365 in July. The Tulu Sahitya Academy realised the importance and pitched into the effort of making it live.

[1] http://www.ethnologue.com/subgroups/dravidian

[2] http://www.censusindia.gov.in/%28S%28i4hlwuf0ltgmdnejdawhdr45%29%29/Census_Data_2001/Census_Data_Online/Language/partb.aspx

[3] http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/requests-to-include-38-languages-in-constitution-pending-govt/article58221.ece

[4] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mangalore/Include-Tulu-in-8th-Schedule-demands-forum/articleshow/38992142.cms

[5] http://tools.wmflabs.org/meta/catanalysis/?title=Wp%2Ftcy&cat=0&wiki=incubatorwiki#overview_edits

Media Coverage

http://www.mangaloretoday.com/newsbriefs/Wikipedia-can-establish-Tulu-in-a-wider-way.html

http://v4news.com/enliven-the-tulu-viki-fidia-first-and-then-add-tulu-to-the-8th-schedule-dr-ug-pavanaja-bangalore-rep-in-udupi/

http://www.mangaloretoday.com/newsbriefs/2-Day-Workshop-on-Tulu-in-internet.html

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/tulu-wikipedia-workshop-cum-editathon-at-udupi

Samskrita Vaibhavam (Sanskrit Wiki Outreach Program)

Shubha and Sayant Mahato — 2014-10-31T14:02:51Z

To celebrate the revival of Sanskrit language, the Bangalore chapter of Samskrita Bharati organised a two-day mega event "Samskrita Vaibhavam" at VSR Kalyan Mantapa in Bangalore on August 9 and 10, 2014.

Competition, Conference & Exhibition

The theme of the event was promotion of Sanskrit. It offered an encapsulation of the culture and heritage woven into Sanskrit. No wonder, the event attracted more than thousand samskrita premis or Sanskrit enthusiasts, who actively participated in the proceedings.

As is well known, Samskrita Bharati with a missionary zeal, is engaged in popularising Sanskrit language and demonstrating to the world that Sanskrit cannot only be easily learnt by anyone but also by those who can easily speak in Sanskrit and transact daily activities too. Samskrita Bharati organises Samskrita Shibirams through which these concepts are popularised.

Notable during the event was a seminar on "Why Samskrit". Dr. Chamu Krishna Shastry, Samskrita Bharati; Dr. Srinivas Varkhede, Karnataka Samskrit University; Dr. Ramachandra Bhat, Veda Vignyana Gurukulam; Dr. Balachandra Rao, mathematecian and astrophysicist; Dr. VR Anil Kumar, Kalpa Heritage Trust; and Uttara Nerurkar, Vedic scholar, were the expert speakers.

Additionally, an exhibition was also organised. Here, there was a stall on "Samskrita Wikipedia" (Sa.Wikipedia). This was a grand attraction for visitors as Sanskrit Wikipedia showed that (Sanskrit) knowledge can be accessed in a split second with a click on a computer.

The Sanskrit Wikipedia wing of Samskrita Bharati is thankful for the timely support from CIS-A2K, which was used for designing and printing handbills and brochures about Sanskrit Wikipedia. The brochures, which were distributed among participants, were well appreciated as it helped them connect with Sa.Wikipedia, and the myriad possibilities available to them by learning Sanskrit.

The entire event was of great significance in the promotion of Sanskrit language.

Acknowledgement from Samskrita Bharati

This article was written by Shubha and Sayant Mahato.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/samskrita-vaibhavam

Odia Wikisource Goes Live!

subha — 2014-11-07T13:30:46Z

Odia netizens have more than one reason to celebrate this festive season.

Odia Wikisource went live just before Deepavali and is now available for Odia readers who are eager to access Odia books online. There are over 40 million native Odia speakers living in Odisha and diaspora in the US, UK, UAE and other parts of the world and yet Odia Wikipedia currently only has 8441 articles (October 2014) as compared to Malayalam which has a comparable number of speakers and over 30,000 articles on the Malayalam Wikipedia. Internet is one of the largest sources of information.

Wikisource is an online library that holds notable published works that are in the public domain or are freely licensed as Creative Commons Share-Alike. Authors and publishers can now choose to donate their books and publications, and provide open access to readers.

Odia is the 11th Indic language to have this project, and is available at or.wikisource.org. Readers can now access many rare books, which are out of copyright, also reuse the content, and commercially reproduce the books with the power of.

None of the state's government portals in Odia have content in Unicode to make them searchable and reusable. The largest digital archive in Odia, a joint initiative of Pragati Utkal Sangha a Bhubaneswar based non-profit and National Institute of Technology Rourkela, created under the project Open Access to Oriya Books (OAOB) has over 740 books published between 1850 – 1950, which have been digitised. These are stored in a PDF format, which restricts searching of content.

Odia Wikisource went through a thorough and long approval process after it was incubated in late 2012, first by the Language Committee and then the Wikimedia Foundation's Board. Amir Aharoni, Member, Language Committee and software engineer, Wikimedia Foundation was of the opinion that Odia Wikisource, had tremendous potential, especially in educating children: "In schools in Odisha, are there lessons of Odia literature? If the answer is yes, then it can do a very simple thing - make these lessons more fun and help children learn more! Everybody says that in Kerala this worked very well with Malayalam literature."

An MoU was signed in January 2014 between Centre for Internet and Society’s Access To Knowledge (CIS-A2K) and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), an educational non-profit that supports over 20,000 students from indigenous communities, to collaboratively spearhead open knowledge projects. However, it was later felt that students and faculty could use their time more effectively if they were taught to digitise Odia books on Odia Wikisource. Workshops have been conducted to train faculty, who in turn will teach students about typing more books on Wikisource. Nine faculty members and 45 students are chosen for this work in the first phase.

Earlier this year, fourteen books (13 in Oriya and one in English) pertaining to a range of subjects have been relicensed under Creative Commons License will be made available on Odia Wikisource. At present, three books have been digitised and proofread, and another is in the process of being digitised. KISS is also digitizing 11 books of Odia author Dr. Jagannath Mohanty that were relicensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 earlier this year, due to CIS-A2K’s efforts. Pankajmala Sarangi, a Wikisource writer, who had digitised two books and has played a key role in getting approval for Odia Wikisource says, "I would be happy to contribute by typing more books on Odia so that they can be stored and available to all. We can take this to masses through social, print and audio & visual media and organizing meetings/discussions." Five modern Odia poetry books from Odia poet Bharat Majhi and four books including one encyclopedia from notable Odia children litterateur Ramakrushna Nanda have been relicensed under CC-by-SA 4.0 recently. These books will soon see their digital versions on Odia Wikisource.

CIS-A2K has been instrumental in identifying four new Wikisource contributors to help to digitise the Odia Bhagabata, an Odia classic compiled in the 14th century. They will join five other Wikimedians who have been contributing on a regular basis to Odia Wikipedia. Wikipedia and Wikisource contributors are excited about this development and this is reflected in the quotes given below.

“Odias around the globe will have access to a vast amount of old as well as new books and manuscripts online in the tip of their finger. Knowing more about the long and glorious history of Odisha will become easier,” says Mrutyunjaya Kar long time Wikimedian who proof-reads books on Odia Wikisource.

Saswat Kumar Swain, a Wikisource contributor says, “It is sad to see that there is not much information in Odia language even after it got the got classical status. This is a really nice initiative. I'd request all Odias to read Odia Wikisource and if possible contribute to make Odia Wikisource bigger & better.”

“As a contributor I find it is easier to edit in Wikisource than Wikipedia. I think common people will get more out of it than Wikipedia as the later is rather meant for people who need research type of article. The forgotten golden articles will surface to prove that old is gold,” says Dr. Subas Chandra Rout, Odia Wikisource contributor.

The project release took little more time because of various technical problems. User:MF-Warburg, admin of Wikisource who played a key role in helping to set the new wiki calmly tells the community, "glorious preparations take time" when Odia Wikimedian and Odia Wikisource's first admin Srikant Kedia pings him multiple times about the release of the project. Srikant, who has been active on Odia Wikipedia and done major work in connecting with the global community and fixing bugs says, "I speak Marwari at home as it is my mother-tongue, I studied in an English medium school as English is a common language worldwide and a need of today. And I am associated with Odia Wikiprojects as Odia is my janmabhumi (motherland) language. My great grandfather came to Odisha over 100 years ago and this language is very precious for me. It is my pleasure to promote Odisha and Odia language."

Preetinanda Roy, KISS's lecturer and coordinator of the KISS-Wikisource project feels that the students learn a lot during workshops and Wikisource write-a-thons. She is currently helping 8 of her colleagues at KISS to train 45 students to digitize books on Odia Wikisource.

Odia Wikisource offers a breath of fresh air for online readers who are eager to access and make available free open content in Odia.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/odia-wikisource-goes-live

Wikipedia can establish Tulu in a wider way

praskrishna — 2014-10-24T16:01:07Z

In his predential address after inaugurating the three-day workshop on ‘The use of internet for promotion of Tulu language,’ organised by Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy, Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy President Janki M Brahmavar opined that internet media, especially Wikipedia, can contribute to a large extent towards the promotion of Tulu language. The president said there was a need for the effective use of Unicode for the digital interpretation of Tulu.

This was published in Mangalore Today on October 17, 2014. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja gave his inputs.

Delivering a talk on the occasion, Centre for Internet and Society (Bangalore) Indian Languages Programme Coordinator and Wikipedia representative Dr U B Pavanaja said that Tulu Wikipedia is in the process of getting life. He said that minimal work has taken place in Tulu language and that too, is not up to the mark, to be considered for the inclusion of the language to the 8th schedule. There is a need for Unicode, which would enable the language to acquire wide recognition, though it positively qualifies as a classical language of ancient times.

There should at least be 500-600 articles in Wikipedia to consider it as live. At least 8-10 articles should be uploaded every month. He added that only eight people had updated their Tulu articles into Wikipedia, during previous year, when the workshop was held at Mangalore. At present the number has gone up to 320. Until March, the number of articles uploaded was 137. The government should work towards it. Dr Pavanaja added that Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia, and is in 287 languages across the world. Anyone who is interested can update his or her articles into the encyclopedia. There are nearly 6000 languages across the world. The people who avail the internet facilities at home can also work on some articles and upload their write ups into Wikipedia.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/mangalore-today-october-17-2014-wikipedia-can-establish-tulu-in-a-wider-way

Open access platform to save the Odia Indian language

subha — 2014-10-24T15:32:40Z

In February 2014, the Government of India declared the South Asian language Odia as the 6th classical language of India which is one among 22 scheduled languages of India and has a literary heritage of more than 5,000 years. There are documents for more than 3,500 years, and the rest are undocumented oral histories.

The article was published by Opensource.com on October 22, 2014.

The native Odia speakers became hopeful of getting a lot of language related projects implemented to grow the lineage of this long literary heritage and see the language used and spoken globally, not just in literature but in computer and mobile games, interactive computer applications and in other digital media—and to reach the masses as a communicative language.

So far, not many federal initiatives have been put into place, nor a single policy level change has been made, to implement a standard as simple as like Unicode for easy access of information. And, there are very few mobile apps that offer concise and easy to digest content. Overall, there is not much content online that is available in a standard format that is easy to search, access, and reproduce,

Wikisource is here to change that and is working to open up a whole new world of online resources for readers.

With more than 40 million native Odia speakers living in the Indian state of Odisha and its neighboring states and the diaspora in rest of the world—primarily living in countries like the US, UK, UAE, and many of the South and East Asian counties—far less content in the Odia language has been made available on the Internet. The highest is Odia Wikipedia, with 8441 articles created by October 2014. A bigger problem is that though there are a few websites with Unicode content, government portals do not have content in Unicode to make them searchable and reusable. A non-profit Srujanika, with support from two other institutions, has digitized around 740 books under the scope of the project: Open Access to Oriya Books (OAOB), most of which were published between 1850 and 1950. This remains the largest digital archive so far for the Odia language, yet all of the books are scanned PDFs, restricting searchability of the content.

Odia Wikisource is a project that aims for the digitization of rare books that are out of copyright. The project is even allowing authors and publishers to donate their copyrighted work by re-licensing under CC0 or CC BY-SA licenses. The goal is to bring about access to large volumes of books and manuscripts and create more Open Educational Resources (OERs). The single biggest advantage of the Wikisource project at-large is that it makes text for books available in Unicode standard, making it searchable on the web and allows readers to copy and use it elsewhere. Most other conventional archival systems lack this important feature.

Wikisource is run by a volunteers and communities who often retype or prepare the books by Optical Character Recognition (OCR), a technique that converts scanned images of books into text. Participate and contribute to Odia Wikisource by visiting or.wikisource.org, the project is open to all who want to help!

As a Wikimedia project, Odia Wikisource went through a thorough and long approval process for about 1 year and 9 months, as an active incubator project—first by the Language Committee and then by the Wikimedia Foundation's Board. During this incubation phase, the project has digitized three books completely and one partially—thanks to the individual contributors. An educational institution Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) in collaboration with the Wikimedia funded Centre for Internet and Society's Access To Knowledge (CIS-A2K) are in the process of digitizing 9 books by the author Dr. Jagannath Mohanty that were re-licensed to CC BY-SA 3.0 earlier this year.

Four new Wikisource contributors joined the project in response to a tweet and a Facebook post by the author to digitize The Odia Bhagabata, classic literature compiled in 14th century. "Content that has already been typed in fonts of various non-Unicode based encoding, now they can be converted by (this) like it was done for The Odia Bhagabata, that was typed and available on the community hosted website Odia.org. New contributors did not face the problem of retyping,” says Manoj Sahukar, who along with the author designed a converter for reading text and transforming into Unicode for The Odia Bhagabata.

Questions for early contributors to Odia Wikisource

Subhashish Panigrahi (SP): You have been with Odia Wikisource since its inception. How you think it will help other Odias?
Mrutyunjaya Kar, a long time Wikimedian who proofreads the books on Odia Wikisource: Odias around the globe will have access to a vast amount of old as well as new books and manuscripts online in the tip of their finger. Knowing more about the long and glorious history of Odisha will become easier.

SP: Do you think any particular section of the society is going to be benefited by this?
Nasim Ali, the oldest active Odia Wikimedian and Wikisource writer: Books contain the gist of all human knowledge. The ease of access and spread of books are the markers of the intellectual status of a society. And in this e-age, Wikisource can be helpful by not just providing easy access to a plethora of books under free licenses but also aiding the spread of basic education in developing economies. Together with Wikisource and cheaper internet this could catalyze a Renaissance of 21st century.

SP: How does it feel to be one of the few contributors to digitize Odia Bhagabata? How do you want to get involved in future?
Nihar Kumar Dalai, a Wikisource writer: This is a proud opportunity for me to be a part of digitization of such old literature. I, at times, think if I could get involved with this full time!

SP: You have digitized almost two books, are the highest contributor to the project and also one of the main reasons for Odia Wikisource getting approved. What are your plans next to grow it and take to masses?
Pankajmala Sarangi, a Wikisource writer: I would be happy to contribute by typing more books on Odia so that they can be stored and available to all. We can take this to masses through social, print and audio & visual media and organizing meetings/discussions.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-source-subhashish-panigrahi-october-22-2014-open-access-platform-to-save-the-odia-indian-language

Odia Littérateur Ramakrushna Nanda's 4 Books Now Available Under a Creative Commons License

subha — 2014-11-06T13:41:49Z

Children literature in Odia language went through an ennoblement after the intervention of Ramakrushna Nanda's writings.

His poetry “Ahe Dayamaya Biswa Bihari” has been sung in every school in Odisha. His work around Odia poetry, language and grammar, essays and encyclopaedia have been greatest resources for children for quite a few decades. CIS-A2K is honored to now bring four of his books under Creative Commons Share Alike (CC-by-SA 4.0) license:

Biswa Parihay (Encyclopaedia)
Lekhanira Pathasala (Grammar)
Bhabi Dekhantu (Compilation of essays)
Pausa Sandhyara Gapa (Compilation of stories)

The larger plans after this is to bring these books online on Odia Wikisource by scanning and digitizing them.

Video

Ramakrushna Nanda's son Prabhat Kumar Nanda and daughter-in-law Anasuya Nanda, speak about the journey of the children's magazine the “Sansar” and way forward for Odia Wikisource for today's generation.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/ramakrushna-nanda-four-books-under-cc-license

Pushing women scientists

praskrishna — 2014-10-21T15:44:09Z

Wikipedia edit-a-thon attempts to raise awareness of the contribution of Indian women to science.

The article by Renuka Phadnis was published in the Hindu on October 19, 2014. T. Vishnu Vardhan gave his inputs.

Ask anyone to name an Indian scientist and the answer is likely to be a man, and not a woman scientist. To let more people know about the unsung heroines of science in India, a workshop called the Ada Lovelace Edit-a-thon 2014 was held here recently. At least 15 participants added content about women scientists over two days to Wikipedia as the first step in bringing public awareness about them.

The edit-a-thon (a large number of people adding or modifying content on Wikipedia at once) concluded on October 14, which was Ada Lovelace Day, an international day to celebrate the achievements of women in science, technology and maths. The event was organised by BioScienceIndia Programme, a non-profit science outreach initiative, and Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society.

Participants added information about at least 40 women scientists. Information on 80 more would be added in a year’s time, said Nandini Rajamani, Co-director, BioScienceIndia Programme.

The aim, however, is to go beyond edit-a-thons, to examine issues that have not received the attention they deserve. Women scientists in India are not on par with men for several reasons (see info box) and the “leaky pipeline” theory is used to describe their decreasing visibility. Vishnu Vardhan, Director, Access to Knowledge team, CIS, said the aim is to motivate a new and younger generation of women scientists.

Karthik Ramaswamy, visiting scientist at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and a participant in the edit-a-thon, said science in India has a ‘diversity problem’ with Indian women and minorities represented inadequately. “There are very few women scientists among faculty of science institutions because they have no role models. Hopefully, this (presence on Wikipedia) will provide them with role models,” he added.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/the-hindu-renuka-phadnis-october-19-2014-wikipedia-editathon-attempts-to-raise-awareness-of-the-contribution-of-indian-women-to-science

More Than 40 Million People Await the Launch of Odia Wikisource

subha — 2014-11-04T13:58:48Z

Speakers of Odia will soon have mountains of books to read online in their mother tongue, following the launch of the Odia Wikisource, which will make accessible many rare books that have entered the public domain.

The article by Subhashish Panigrahi was published in Global Voices on October 18, 2014 and thereafter mirrored on the Wikimedia Blog on October 21, 2014.

Authors and publishers are also invited to donate their copyrighted work, possibly bringing open access to large volumes of books and manuscripts, creating a vast archive of educational resources. And everything will be in Odia.

One of the biggest advantages of Wikisource is that all its books are available in Unicode, meaning that Google's search engine indexes the texts’ entirety, and readers are able to copy easily what they wish. (Most conventional archival systems lack this feature.) A volunteer community administers Wikisource. To upload a book's content, volunteers either retype the books word-for-word, or, when possible, use Optical Character Recognition (commonly known as “OCR“), which converts scanned images into editable text. Available at or.wikisource.org, Odia is Wikisource's eleventh Indic language.

There are more than 40 million native Odia speakers in the world. Most live in the Indian state of Odisha and its neighboring states, but there is a large diaspora in countries like the US, UK, UAE, and across South and East Asia. Despite being spoken by so many people, Odia's online presence is relatively small.

As of October 2014, Odia Wikipedia hosted 8,441 articles. The state government's websites have Odia-language content, naturally, but none of the text is in Unicode, making the materials invisible to search engines and difficult to share. Thanks to individual and organizational efforts, some Odia-language websites have recently emerged with Unicode content.

With support from the non-profit organization Pragati Utkal Sangha and the National Institute of Technology Rourkela, a Bhubaneswar-based outfit has digitized about 740 books through the Open Access to Oriya Books (OAOB) project. Most of these texts were published between 1850 and 1950. The OAOB project is the largest existing digital archive of Odia literature, but the archived books are only available as scanned PDFs, restricting readers’ ability to search within the texts.

As a Wikimedia project, Odia Wikisource underwent a long approval process, after running as an active incubator project for nearly two years. Both the Language Committee and the Wikimedia Foundation's Board reviewed and endorsed the project.

Odia Wikisource has already digitized and proofread three books entirely. In collaboration with the Wikimedia-funded Centre for Internet and Society‘s Access to Knowledge, the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) has partially digitized another book, as well. KISS is also busy digitizing another Nine books by Odia-language author Dr. Jagannath Mohanty that were relicensed to CC-BY-SA 3.0 earlier this year.

In response to posts on Twitter and Facebook, four new contributors recently joined Wikisource to help digitize “The Odia Bhagabata,” a literary classic compiled in the 14th century. “Content that have already been typed with fonts of non-Unicode encoding systems could be converted by converters which was the case of Odia Bhagabata. New contributors did not face the problem of retyping the text, as the book was already available on a website Odia.org and is out of copyright”, says Manoj Sahukar, who (along with yours truly) designed a converter that helped to transcribe “Bhagabata”.

Rising Voices contacted some of those whose efforts made this happen.

Mrutyunjaya Kar (MK), Long time Wikimedian who has proof-read the books on Odia Wikisource
Rising Voices (RV): Youre there with Odia Wikisource since its inception. How you think it will help other Odias?
MK: Odias around the globe will have access to a vast amount of old as well as new books and manuscripts online in the tip of their finger. Knowing more about the long and glorious history of Odisha will become easier.

Nihar Kumar Dalai (NKD), Wikisource writer
RV: How does it feel to be one of the few contributors to digitize Odia Bhagabata. How you want to get involved in future?
NKD: This is a proud opportunity for me to be a part of digitization of such old literature. I, at times, think if I could get involved with this full time!

Nasim Ali (NA), Oldest active Odia Wikimedian and Wikisource writer
RV: Do you think any particular section of the society is going to be benefited by this?
NA: Books contain the gist of all human knowledge. The ease of access and spread of books are the markers of the intellectual status of a society. And in this e-age Wikisource can be helpful by not just providing easy access to a plethora of books under free licenses but also aiding the spread of basic education in developing economies. Together with Wikisource and cheaper internet this could catalyze a Renaissance of 21st century.

Pankajmala Sarangi (PS), Wikisource writer
RV: You have digitized almost two books, are the highest contributor to the project and also one of the main reasons for Odia Wikisource getting approved. What are your plans next to grow it and take to masses?
PS: I would be happy to contribute by typing more books on Odia so that they can be stored and available to all. We can take this to masses through social, print and audio & visual media and organizing meetings/discussions.

Amir Aharoni (AA), Wikimedia Language Committee member and Software Engineer at the Language Engineering team at the Wikimedia Foundation
RV: What you feel Wikisource could do to a language like Odia with more than 40 million speakers?
AA: In schools in Odisha, are there lessons of Odia literature? If the answer is yes, then it can do a very simple thing – make these lessons more fun and help children learn more! Everybody says that in Kerala this worked very well with Malayalam literature.

Clearly, strong passions motivate Odia Wikisource's volunteers, like Nihar Kumar Dalai, who writes on Facebook:

Hindi and English are fine, but our native language it bit more special! Who of us does not now about the art, culture, noted personalities, tourist spots and festivals of Odisha? But if you search online about all of these then there is very little available. There comes a simple and easy solution Odia Wikipedia. Like Odia Wikipedia, Odia Wikisource is another great place and this is my small contribution to bring Odia Bhagabata on Odia Wikisource.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/global-voices-subhashish-panigrahi-october-18-2014-more-than-400-million-people-await-launch-of-odia-wikisource

Bharat Majhi Writings Now Available Under a Creative Commons License

subha — 2014-11-07T15:34:38Z

Before the advent of Odia Wikisource becoming live, Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) got in touch with notable Odia author Bharat Majhi for bringing his writings on the Internet.

Dr. Sailen Routray, Director, Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) (also an institutional partner of CIS-A2K) played a key role in initiating a dialog with Mr. Majhi. Five of his books are now available under Creative Commons Share Alike 4.0 (CC-by-SA 4.0) license:

Agadhu Duari
Saralarekhaa
Murtikaara
Mahanagara Padya
Highwayre Kuhudi

Bharat Majhi is a known name in Odia literary circle. His writings on societal structures in rural Odisha, the people, their life, aspiration and suffering have been critically acclaimed. These books also become the first Odia modern poetry books to be available under a CC-by-SA license and Mr. Majhi takes another leap of being the first Odia poet to release his literary work under CC-by-SA 4.0 license.

Video

In this video, Odia-language poet Bharat Majhi reciting a poem from his first book Agadhu Duari. He recently released 5 of his books under CC-by-SA 4.0 license by the efforts of Centre for Internet and Society's Access To Knowledge (CIS-A2K) and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS).He also tells Subhashish Panigrahi about his dreams of poetry becoming a performing art coming true by it becoming more open. After other Odia author and poet Dr Jagannath Mohanty, Majhi is the first Odia poet to release poem online under CC-by-SA license and his poetry earn the title of the first Odia modern poetry under the same license.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/bharat-majhi-writings-now-available-under-cc-license

Ada Lovelace Edit-a-thon 2014

praskrishna — 2014-10-13T06:30:08Z

A Wikipedia edit-a-thon is being held at Urban Solace on October 14, 2014 from 10.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. The event is being organized by IndiaBioScience in partnership with the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team. CIS-A2K will conduct the first three edit-a-thons.

In India, Science as a discipline is subject to many of the same gender issues as it is worldwide - women scientists are fewer in number than men, they occupy fewer positions of power, and face distinct issues by virtue of their gender and the accompanying societal pressures. Women Scientists in India also tend to be less visible than their male counterparts, and public awareness of Indian Women Scientists is low.

IndiaBioScience will be organising a series of public events to raise the profile of women scientists on one of the most-popular online encyclopaedias - Wikipedia. At these events, participants will be encouraged to create and complete profiles of Indian Women in Science.

The last of these events, on October 14 coincides with Ada Lovelace Day, an international day to celebrate the achievements of women in Science, Technology and Math.

To participate sign up below or click here (http://www.indiabioscience.org/content/women-science-wiki-edit-thon)

Lunch and snacks will be provided.

At the venue, the events will begin with a short, hands-on introduction to Wiki editing. Participants can then go on to pick the scientist they would like to work on. There will be an interaction session with a guest Woman Scientist around lunch, with a discussion of issues commonly faced by women in science. In the afternoon session, participants can continue working on the Wiki pages, with a break for tea. Participants are requested to bring their laptops. We have a few desktops available at Saturday's venue for those who cannot do so.

Online participants can find us via Google Hangout. Chat with us or dial in for interactions, questions, help or simply to socialize.

Speaker: Rohini Godbole

See the event page on Wikipedia.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/ada-lovelace-edit-a-thon-2014

Indian Women in Science Wiki edit-a-thon

praskrishna — 2014-10-13T06:17:56Z

A Wikipedia edit-a-thon is being held at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore on October 11, 2014 from 10.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. The event is being organized by IndiaBioScience in collaboration with the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team.

CIS-A2K will conduct the first three edit-a-thons.

To participate sign up below or click here (http://www.indiabioscience.org/content/women-science-wiki-edit-thon

Contact the IndiaBioScience Team for more details: www.indiabioscience.org & team@indiabioscience.org

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/india-women-in-science-wiki-edit-a-thon

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ବିକାଶରେ ପ୍ରତିବନ୍ଧକ ଓ ସମ୍ଭାବନା

subha — 2014-10-13T05:19:44Z

I authored an editorial in today's Samaja (Odia daily). It talks about the hurdles Odia language has been facing and potential aspects of the language including it being used massively on the Internet in Wikipedia and other platforms.

Click to read the article published in the Samaja on October 13, 2014 here. Click to download the file (PDF).

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ଶାସ୍ତ୍ରୀୟ ମାନ୍ୟତା ପାଇବା ପରେ ସଭା ସମିତି ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ଗୋଟିଏ କଥା "ଓଡ଼ିଆ ସଂସ୍କୃତରୁ ଆହରିତ ନୁହେଁ, ବରଂ ନିଜେ ସ୍ୱୟଂସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ ଏକ ଭାଷା ଯାହାର ପାଖାପାଖି ପାଞ୍ଚହଜାର ବର୍ଷର ଇତିହାସ ରହିଛି'ଜନମାନସରେ ବାରମ୍ବାର ବିମ୍ବିତ ହୋଇଛି । ଏହା ଅନେକ ଓଡ଼ିଆଙ୍କୁ ନିଜ ଭାଷା ବାବଦରେ ଖାଲି ସଚେତନ କରିନାହିଁ, ବରଂ କେଇ ଶହ ବର୍ଷର ବିଦେଶୀ ଶାସନ ଓ ତା' ପରର ଭୁଶୁଡ଼ି ପଡ଼ିଥିବା ଏକ ସାମାଜିକ ଅବସ୍ଥା ଭିତରେ, ଢୋକେ ପିଇ ଦଣ୍ଡେ ଜିଇ ଆଗକୁ ଆଗେଇଥିବା ଏକ ଜାତିକୁ ଆତ୍ମଗୌରବ ଦେଇଛି । ୧୯୩୬ରେ ଭାଷା ଭିତ୍ତିରେ ଓଡ଼ିଶା ପ୍ରଦେଶ ଗଢ଼ାହେବାବେଳେ ଓଡ଼ିଆଙ୍କ ମଞ୍ଜ ଯେଉଁ ଦମ୍ଭିଲା ହୋଇଥିଲା, ଶାସ୍ତ୍ରୀୟ ମାନ୍ୟତା ମିଳିବା ପରେ ତା' ଉପରେ ଏ ଭାଷାକୁ ଆହୁରି କେଇ ହଜାର ବର୍ଷ ଆଗକୁ ବଢ଼ାଇବା ପାଇଁ ସଂକଳ୍ପର ଇନ୍ଧନ ଯୋଗାଇଛି । ତେବେ ଆମର ଏ ଗୌରବ ସାର୍ବଜନୀନ କି କେବଳ ବୁଦ୍ଧିଜୀବୀଙ୍କ ଭିତରେ ସୀମିତ ତାହା ବିଚାରିବାର ବେଳ ଆସିଛି । ଭାଷାଟିଏ କେବେ ହେଁ ଭାଷାଗବେଷାଳିଙ୍କ ଭାଷା ହୋଇ ଜିଏଁ ନାହିଁ, ଜିଏଁ ସାଧାରଣ ଲୋକଙ୍କ ନିତିଦିନର ଜୀବନରେ-ଘରେ, ସାମାଜିକ ମେଳିରେ, ସାହିତ୍ୟରେ ବିଶେଷ କରି ବେପାର-ବଣିଜରେ ଓ ଶାସନରେ । ଆମ ଭାଷା କେତେ କେଉଁଠି ବ୍ୟବହାରରେ ଲାଗୁଛି ଓ କେତେ ଲାଗିବ, ତାହାର ନିର୍ଦ୍ଧାରଣ ନିତାନ୍ତ ଜରୁରୀ । ଏ ଗୁରୁବେଳା ଏବେ ଆସି ଉପନୀତ । ଭାଷାଟିଏ ସବୁବେଳେ ଆରମ୍ଭ ହୋଇଥାଏ ସମାଜ ସମାଜ ଭିତରେ ଭାବ ଦିଆନିଆ ନିମନ୍ତେ । ଇତିହାସ, ସାମାଜିକତା କିମ୍ବା ଧନ ସମ୍ପତ୍ତି ନିଜପର ପିଢ଼ି ପାଇଁ ସାଇତି ରଖିବାପାଇଁ ସମାଜର ପୁରୁଖା ଲୋକେ କଥିତ ଭାଷାକୁ ଲିପି ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ଲେଖିରଖନ୍ତି । ଏହି ଳେଖିବାର ପ୍ରକ୍ରିୟା କିଛିକାଳ ଚାଲିବା ଭିତରେ ଲିଖନ ପଦ୍ଧତିକୁ ବ୍ୟବସ୍ଥିତ କରିବା ନିମନ୍ତେ ବ୍ୟାକରଣ ତିଆରି ହୁଏ, କେବଳ ଆବଶ୍ୟକତା ମେଣ୍ଟାଇବାପାଇଁ ଲିଖନ ତିଆରି ନହୋଇ ମନୋରଞ୍ଜନ ଓ ଜୀବନଧାରାକୁ ସୁଗମ କରିବାପାଇଁ ସାହିତ୍ୟ ତିଆରି ହୁଏ । ଏମିତି ହୁଏ ଭାଷାର ବିକାଶ । କେବେ ଏକ ଭାଷାଭାଷୀ ସମାଜ ଆଉ ଏକ ଭାଷାଭାସୀ ସମାଜର ଶିକାର ହୁଏ ତ କେବେ ଷଡ଼ଯନ୍ତ୍ରର । ଭାଷା ପ୍ରବାହର ଏ ଆବଡ଼ାଖାବଡ଼ା ପଥରେ ମୂଳ ଭାଷାରୁ କେତେ ନାଶ ହୁଏ କେତେ ଅଲଗା ଭାଷାରୁ ମିଶେ । କେବେକେବେ ଭାଷାଟିଏର ଆଧୁନିକ ରୂପ ମୂଳ ରୂପରୁ ଖୁବ୍‍ ଅଲଗା ହୋଇବସେ । ଓଡ଼ିଆ, ଏକ ଭାଷା ଭାବେ ଏମିତି ଉତ୍‍ଥାନ ପତନ ଭିତର ଦେଇ ନିଶ୍ଚିତ ଆସିଛି । ଆଜି ଆମେ ଯଦି କଳିଙ୍ଗରୁ ଆବିଷ୍କୃତ ଲିଖିତ ପୋଥିପୁରାଣରୁ (ଯାହା ପାଳି ଭାଷା ସହିତ ସାମଞ୍ଜସ୍ୟ ରଖେ)ଆମ ଭାଷା ସହ ମେଳ ଖୋଜିବସିବା, ଅନେକ ମେଳ ପାଇବା ନିଶ୍ଚିତ, ହେଲେ ଅନେକ ବର୍ଷର ବ୍ୟବଧାନ ହେତୁ ତା'ର ଅନେକ ଭାଗ ଆମକୁ ବୁଝିବାକୁ ଦୁରୁହ ମଧ୍ୟ ହେବ । ଆମ ଭାଷାର ମୌଳିକତା ଜାଣିବା ସମୟରେ ଆମେ ସବୁଠାରୁ ମୂଳ ପ୍ରମାଣ ଯାହା କେବଳ ଆମର ଅଧୁନା ବ୍ୟବହୃତ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ସହ ମୋଟାମୋଟି ମିଶୁଥିବା ତଥା ଆମର ସାମାଜିକ ବ୍ୟବସ୍ଥାର ଇତିହାସ ସହ ମିଶୁଥିବ, ତାହା ପରଖି ନିର୍ଦ୍ଧାରିବା । ପ୍ରାମାଣିକ ଓ ଐତିହାସିକ ତଥ୍ୟ, ଲୋକମୁଖରେ ଜୀବନ୍ତ ଇତିହାସ (ଓରାଲ ହିଷ୍ଟି୍ର) ତଥା ପ୍ରତ୍ନତାତ୍ତ୍ୱିକ ଗବେଷଣାର ଆଧାରରେ ଏହା ସାଧିତ ହେବ । ଆମ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ କିଛି ଗବେଷଣା ହୋଇଛି, କିଛି କାମ ବାକି ଅଛି, ଆଉ ଆମ ପାଖେ ମିଳୁଥିବା ଭାଷାଗତ, ଲିପିଗତ, ପ୍ରତ୍ନତାତ୍ତ୍ୱିକ ଓ ସାମାଜିକଗତ ପ୍ରମାଣକୁ ଭିତ୍ତିକରି ହୋଇଥିବା ନାନାଦି ଗବେଷଣାକୁ ପରସ୍ପର ସହ ଯୋଡ଼ିବା ଦେଇ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର କ୍ରମବିକାଶର ଧାରା ଜଣାପଡ଼ିବ । ହେଲେ ଇତିହାସ ଗୋଟେ ଆଡ଼େ, ବାସ୍ତବିକ ଜୀବନରେ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ରତିଛବି ଆଉ ଗୋଟେ ଆଡ଼େ । ଆମେ ଅତୀତରେ ଏକ ଲଢ଼ୁଆ, ପରିଶ୍ରମୀ, ଚତୁର ଜାତି ହୋଇଥିଲେ ହେଁ ଆମ ଏବେକାର ପିଢ଼ିରେ ଯେ ଘୋଡ଼ାମୁହାଁ ପୁଅ ଜନମ ନହେବେ ତା'କିଏ ଦମ୍ଭର ସହ କହିପାରିବ? ଗହଣା ଯେତେ ଝଟକୁ ପଛେ ମାସରେ ଥରେ ତେନ୍ତୁଳିପାଣିରେ ମାଜିବା ଚାହି । ଭାଷାଟିଏ ଯେତେ ପୁରାତନ ଓ ସମୃଦ୍ଧ ହେଉ ପଛକେ, ଛୋଟ ପିଲାଟିଏରୁ ନେଇ ବୁଢ଼ାଯାଏ ସେ ଭାଷାକୁ ନିଜ ଜୀବନଧାରଣର ଭାଷା ଭାବେ ବ୍ୟବହାର ନକଲାଯାଏ ସେ ଭାଷାର ଉତ୍ତରଣ କେବେ ହେବନାହିଁ । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ଏବେ ଧୀରେଧୀରେ ସାଧାରଣ ବ୍ୟବହାରରୁ ଦୂରେଇ ଯାଉଛି । ଏ କଥା ଯେତେ ବେଦନାଦାୟକ ହେଲେ ବି ସତ । ଆମେ ରକ୍ଷଣଶୀଳ ଭାବେ ଇଂରାଜୀ ବା ହିନ୍ଦୀଭାଷାକୁ ଦୋଷ ହେଉଛୁ ସିନା, କିନ୍ତୁ ସେହି ପରିମାଣରେ ଆମେ ନିଜ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ ଜନପ୍ରିୟ ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ସାଧନ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଇପାରିନାହୁଁ । ମୋବାଇଲ କଷ୍ଟମର କେଆରରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆଟିଏ ସେପଟରୁ କଲ ଉଠାଇ ହିନ୍ଦୀରେ ସିଧା କଥା ହେବା ଆରମ୍ଭ କରିବା ଦେଖି ଲାଗିବ ଆପଣ ବୋଧେ ଦିଲ୍ଲୀ କି ପାଟଣାରେ ଅଛନ୍ତି । ଗଣମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ବହୁବିଧ ଖେଚୁଡ଼ି ଭାଷାରେ ସମ୍ବାଦ ପରିବେଷଣ, ବିଲବୋର୍ଡ଼ଠାରୁ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରି ଟିଭି ବିଜ୍ଞାପନ ଯାଏ ଅବିକଳ ହିନ୍ଦୀ ବା ଇଂରାଜୀ ଢ଼ାଞ୍ଚାରୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆକୁ ବଦଳାଇବା, ଇଂରାଜୀମାଧ୍ୟମ ସ୍କୁଲମାନଙ୍କରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆକୁ ବାଧ୍ୟତାମୂଳକ ନକରାଇବା, ବିଭିନ୍ନ ଶିକ୍ଷାନୁଷ୍ଠାନଗୁଡ଼ିକରେ, ଦୋକାନ ବଜାରରେ, ରାଜଧାନୀର କ୍ୟାଫେଠାରୁ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରି ଛୋଟଛୋଟ ଦୋକାନରେ ହିନ୍ଦୀରେ କଥାବାର୍ତ୍ତା ଶୁଣି ଲାଗୁଛି ଆମ ସମାଜ ପାଇଁ ଆଉ ଏକ ଭାଷା ଆନ୍ଦୋଳନ ଲୋଡ଼ା ।

ଏକଥା କହିବାର ଉଦ୍ଦେଶ୍ୟ ହେଉଛି ଯେଉଁ ତୋଷାଳିକୁ ଆମ ସଂସ୍କୃତିର ପ୍ରାଣକେନ୍ଦ୍ର କହି ମନ୍ଦିରମାଳିନୀ ଉପାଧି ଦେଇ ଆମେ ମୁଣ୍ଡରେ ବସାଇଛୁ, ସେଇ ସହରରେ ଅନ୍ୟ ରାଜ୍ୟରୁ ଆଗତ ବିଭିନ୍ନ ଭାଷାଭାଷୀ ଇଞ୍ଜିନିଅରିଂ ବା ଅନ୍ୟାନ୍ୟ ଛାତ୍ର ଓ ଚାକିରିଆ କେତେ ଅଧିକ ହୋଇଗଲେ ଯେ, ଆମର ଦୋକାନବଜାରର ବ୍ୟାବହାରିକ ଭାଷା ହିନ୍ଦୀ ହୋଇଗଲା? ଯେଉଁଠି ଆମ ରାଜ୍ୟର ଭାଷା ଓ ଚଳଣିର ବାନା ସୁଦୂର ଜାପାନ, ଥାଇଲାଣ୍ଡ, କୋରିଆ, ମାଲେସିଆ, ସିଙ୍ଗାପୁରଠୁ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରି ଦକ୍ଷିଣ ଆମେରିକାଯାଏ ଉଡ଼ୁଛି ସେଠି ଆମେ ଆମ ପଡ଼ିଶା ରାଜ୍ୟର କେତୋଟି ପିଲାଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ ନିଜର ପରିଚୟ ହରାଇଦେବା? ନିଜ ଭାଷାକୁ ଉଜାଡ଼ି ଦେବା? ବିଶ୍ୱାସ କରିବାକୁ ବାଧ୍ୟ ହେବେ ଯେ ଧୀରେଧୀରେ ଓଡ଼ିଶାର ଶିକ୍ଷାନୁଷ୍ଠାନମାନଙ୍କରେ ବ୍ୟାବହାରିକ ଭାଷା ଉପରେ ବର୍ଣ୍ଣିତ ଖେଚୁଡ଼ି ଭାଷା ହେଲାଣି । ଏଥିରେ ହିନ୍ଦୀ ଛୁଆଁ ଥିବାରୁ କେହି ହିନ୍ଦୀ ଭାଷା ବିଶାରଦ ଯେ ଆନନ୍ଦ ଅନୁଭବ କରିବେ ତାହା ମୋର ଧାରଣା ବାହାରେ । ଏମିତି ବେମୁରବା ଭାଷାର ଏନ୍ତୁଡ଼ିଶାଳ ହିନ୍ଦୀ ଭାଷାର ଅନେକ ଟିଭି ଚ୍ୟାନେଲ ଓ ବଲିଉଡ଼ । ଯାହା ଜଣାଶୁଣା ମିଡ଼ିଆରେ ପ୍ରସାରିତ ହୁଏ ତାକୁ ଯୁବଗୋଷ୍ଠୀ ଶୁଣନ୍ତି । ସେଥିରେ ଯୁବାମନକୁ ସୁହାଇବାକୁ ଏତେ ଯେ ଉପାଦାନ ଭରି ରଖାଯାଇଛି, ଆମ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ମିଡ଼ିଆ ଏଯାଏ ପହଞ୍ଚି ପାରୁନାହିଁ; ବରଂ ସେମାନେ ହିନ୍ଦୀ ଭାଷାରେ ପ୍ରସାରିତ ଅନେକ କାର୍ଯ୍ୟକ୍ରମର ନକଲ କରିବାକୁ ଯାଇ ଆହୁରି ବେଙ୍ଗା ଭାଷାଟିଏ ତିଆରି କରୁଛନ୍ତି । ଆଉ ଏ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ରସାର କେଉଁ ଗୋଟିଏ ଭାଷାର ଲାଭ ଯେ ହେଉନାହିଁ ଏକଥା କହିବା ବାହୁଲ୍ୟ । ଏ ଭାଷା ଏବେ ରିଆଲିଟି ଶୋ କିମ୍ବା ଗୀତନାଚ ଭଳି ଅନେକ ମନୋରଞ୍ଜନଧର୍ମୀ ଓଡ଼ିଆ କାର୍ଯ୍ୟକ୍ରମରେ ଦେଖିବାକୁ ମିଳିବ । ଭାବନ୍ତୁ, ଆଜିକାଲିର ଶିଶୁମାନେ ବହିଠାରୁ ଯେତେ ଦୂରେଇଗଲେଣି ଆଉ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ଶିକ୍ଷାକୁ ସ୍କୁଲରେ ଯେଉଁଭଳି ଅବହେଳା କରାଯାଉଛି ସେଥିରେ ପିଲାଟିଏ କେମିତି ଅବା ଶିଖିବ ଓଡ଼ିଆ? ଯଦି ଏ ରାଜ୍ୟର ଆଗାମୀ ପିଢ଼ି ଏ ଭାଷା ଶିଖୁନାହାନ୍ତି, ଯୁବାଏ ୪୦ ଭାଗରୁ ଅଧିକ ଶବ୍ଦ ହିନ୍ଦୀ, ଇଂରାଜୀରୁ ଆହୁରି ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରୁଛନ୍ତି ତା'ହେଲେ ଆଉ ଦଶଟି ବର୍ଷରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ କେଉଁଠି ଥିବ? ଭାଷାଟି କେବଳ କ'ଣ କିଛି ଜେଜେ ବୟସର ଲୋକଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ, ଆଉ ସାହିତ୍ୟ ଚଷୁଥିବା କିଛି ତରୁଣ ଓ ପ୍ରବୀଣଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ?

ତେବେ ଏଥିପାଇଁ ଆମ ଗଣମାଧ୍ୟମ ଏକ ଗୁରୁଭୂମିକା ନିଭାଇ ପାରନ୍ତା । ଏବେ ଯେଉଁ ଓଡ଼ିଆକୁ ଆମେ ମାନକ ବୋଲି ମାନୁଛେ ସେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଆମ ଭାଷାର ପୁରାକାଳର ଭାଷା ସହ କିଛି ତ ସାମଞ୍ଜସ୍ୟ ରଖେ । ତା'ର ବାକ୍ୟ ଗଢ଼ଣ ଓ ଶବ୍ଦସମ୍ଭାର ଏବଂ ଦେଶୀୟ କହି ଏକ ସମୟରେ ଫିଙ୍ଗାଯାଇଥିବା ଅନେକ ଶବ୍ଦର ପୁନଃବ୍ୟବହାର କରି ଆଜିର ଖବରକାଗଜ, ରେଡ଼ିଓ-ଟେଲିଭିଜନ ଏବଂ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ୍‍ରେ ଫେସବୁକ୍‍, ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ, ଅନ୍ୟାନ୍ୟ ପୋର୍ଟାଲ ଆଦିରେ ଅଧିକରୁ ଅଧିକ ବ୍ୟବହାର କଲେ ତା'ର ପ୍ରଭାବ ସିଧାସଳଖ ସମାଜ ଉପରେ ପଡ଼ନ୍ତା । ହିନ୍ଦୀ କି ବାକି ଭାଷାରୁ କପି ନକରି ଆମର ଅନେକ ସୁଖପାଠ୍ୟ ସାହିତ୍ୟରୁ କାହାଣୀମାନ ଓ ଆମର ନିଆରା ପରିବେଷଣ ଶୈଳୀଟିଏ ତିଆରି କରାଗଲେ ଆଗାମୀ କେଇ ପିଢ଼ିର ମନ ଭିତରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଯେ ବ୍ୟାବହାରିକ ଭାଷାଭାବେ ଏକ ସମୃଦ୍ଧ ଭାଷା, ଏ ଭାବନା ତିଆରି ହୋଇଯାଆନ୍ତା ।

ଅନେକେ ଆଳ ଦେଖାନ୍ତି ଯେ କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟରରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ବ୍ୟବହାର ଦୁରୂହ । ଅନ୍ତତଃ ୮ବର୍ଷ ଧରି ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବ୍ୟବହାରର ଅନୁଭୂତିରୁ କହିବି ଯେ କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟରରେ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିବାପାଇଁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଜଗତର ବାକି ଭାଷା ତୁଳନାରେ କୌଣସି ଗୁଣରେ କମ୍‍ ନୁହେଁ । ତେବେ କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟର ଓ ମୋବାଇଲରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ପଢ଼ିବା ଓ ଲେଖିବା ସହିତ ଅଧିକରୁ ଅଧିକ ୱେବସାଇଟ୍‍ରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିବା ଅଧିକ ବଢ଼ିନାହିଁ । ପାଖାପାଖି ୧୦-୨୦ଜଣ ସ୍ୱେଚ୍ଛାସେବୀଙ୍କ ଅବଦାନରେ ୮୦୦୦ରୁ ଅଧିକ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ତିଆରି ହୋଇପାରିଲା ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ, ଆମର ଏତେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଇଞ୍ଜିନିଅର କ'ଣ ଓଡ଼ିଶାର ପାରମ୍ପରିକ ଖେଳକୁ ନେଇ ମୋବାଇଲ କି କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟର ଗେମ୍‍, ପିଲାଙ୍କୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଶିଖାଇବା ପାଇଁ ଇଣ୍ଟରାକ୍ଟିଭ ଗେମ ତିଆରନ୍ତେ ନାହିଁ? ଆଜିକାଲି ପିଲାଏ ବହି ପଢ଼ାରୁ ଯେଉଁ ଦୂରେଇ ଯାଉଛନ୍ତି, ଇ-ବୁକ୍‍ ବା ଡିଜିଟାଲ ବହି ତିଆରିଲେ ସେସବୁ ପିଲାଏ ଭଲ ଭାବେ ପଢ଼ିପାରନ୍ତେ ।

ଭାଷା ସାହିତ୍ୟର ଚଉହଦିରୁ ମୁକୁଳି ବେପାର ବଣିଜର ଭାଷା, ଶାସନର ଭାଷା ହେଉ । ଭାଷା ଶିକ୍ଷାଦୀକ୍ଷାର କେବଳ ଭାଷା ନୁହେଁ ବରଂ ବ୍ୟାବହାରିକ ଭାଷା ହେଲେ ଯାଇ ଲୋକେ ତାକୁ ଅଧିକ କହିବା ଆରମ୍ଭ କରିବେ । ଭାଷାକୁ ନେଇ ହୀନମନ୍ୟତା ସେତେବେଳେ ଦୂର ହେବ ଯେତେବେଳେ ଆମେ ଆମ ଭାଷାକୁ ଅର୍ଥ ରୋଜଗାରର ଭାଷା କରିପାରିବୁ । ଭାଷା ଯେତେବେଳେ ବିତ୍ତଶାଳୀଙ୍କ ଭାଷା ହୁଏ ସେଥିରେ ଗବେଷଣା ହେବାର ଅଧିକ । ଭାଷା ଯେଉଁଠି ଯେତେବେଶି ସାମାଜିକ, ସେଠି ସେତେ ବ୍ୟାପକ । କେରଳୀମାନେ ମନ୍ଦିରର ପୂଜାରେ ଖାଲି ନୁହେଁ, ଚର୍ଚ୍ଚର ଉପାସନାରେ ଆଉ ମସଜିଦର ଫାଟକରେ ମଧ୍ୟ ମାଲାୟାଲାମର ବହୁଳ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରନ୍ତି । ସେମାନଙ୍କର ଧର୍ମଗତ ବିଭେଦ ବାହ୍ୟ ରୂପରେ ଏତେ କମ ଯେ ବେଳେବେଳେ ଜଣାପଡ଼େ ନାହିଁ କିଏ କେଉଁ ଧର୍ମର । ଆମର ଭାଷାର ବ୍ୟବହାର ବେଳେବେଳେ ସାମାଜିକ ବ୍ୟବହାରରୁ ସଂକୀର୍ଣ୍ଣ ହୋଇ ଧର୍ମଗତ ହୋଇଛି । କଳିଙ୍ଗର ଇତିହାସ କହେ ଏ ଚତୁର ଜାତି ସାଗର ବେଳାର ଲମ୍ବା ବେଳାଭୂଇଁ ଉପକୂଳରେ ବସତି ସ୍ଥାପନ କରି କେତେ ଦଶନ୍ଧି ରାଜୁତି କରିଥିଲା, ତା'ର ବଣିକ-ସାଧବ ପୁଅ ମାଛମରାଠାରୁ ପାଟଲୁଗା ବୁଣା ବହୁବିଧ କାମରେ ନିପୁଣ ହୋଇ ନିଜର ଭାଷା, ଚଳଣି ଓ ଜୀବନର ଅନେକ ରଙ୍ଗ ଦକ୍ଷିଣ ଏସିଆର ଦେଶମାନଙ୍କରେ ମାଖିଥିଲେ । ସେ ଭାଷା ବଳବାନ, ଯାହା ବେପାର ଆଉ ଶାସନର ଭାଷା । ସରକାରୀ କାମ ସବୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାରେ ହେବା ଆରମ୍ଭ ହେଉ । ଆଗରୁ ଦୁଇଥର ହୋଇ ବନ୍ଦ ହୋଇଯାଇଥିବା ଏ ବ୍ୟବସ୍ଥାର ପୁନରାରମ୍ଭ କରାଗଲେ ଅନେକ ସମ୍ଭାବନା ଠିଆ ହୁଅନ୍ତା ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ଭବିଷ୍ୟତ ପାଇଁ । ଏଥି ସହିତ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାକୁ ନେଇ ଚାକିରି କରିବାପାଇଁ ବି ବାଟ ମିଳିଯାଆନ୍ତା ଯୁବପିଢ଼ିକୁ ।

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/subhashish-panigrahi-october-13-2014-editorial-in-samaja