Kannada

[Background: Kannada, like probably many other Indian languages, has seen its days run out completely as the primary language used to store, record knowledge. It may have been due to several factors, but back to local view of the world: local news, local language, local perspectives and everything local has now been catching up. Even FM radios in the city have switched back to the local language as the primary language of broadcast. Well, is it time the local language is also used more and more to document knowledge?

Sampada Foundation
in association with
Center for Internet and Society

invites you to...


Discussion on:

• Kannada, standards in technology and Internet
  - writing about Software, related technologies and free alternatives. Creating awareness, sharing know-how.
• Effective use of Technology, Internet:
  - writing Agriculture, Water, Science and Technology in local language.

'Nira Nischinte' (ನೀರ ನಿಶ್ಚಿಂತೆ) or loosely translated - 'Peace of mind with Water' is the slogan we chose for the Kannada version of Water Portal (which is funded by Arghyam), and also as the title of the event we planned surrounding it. We just had the third edition of the 'Nira Nischinte' event at Tumkur yesterday. The first one was at Dharwad, the second at Mangalore.

A chat conversation that became a discussion between friends, later became an idea for a meet-up! On March 22nd, we are meeting up near maDivaLa lake (Bangalore), to celebrate the day. This would be a Kannada Water Portal event, so expect lots of discussion in Kannada! :-) There are also several efforts on to bring a cycling track to maDivaLa lake and to get the lake cleaned up. The event could also add up to the support towards these efforts.

Sunil Jayaprakash sends me this very handy plug-in he wrote for Firefox. He writes, (and I quote):

You might be knowing that there is a sudha weekly (www.sudhaezine.com) that gets published. Infact, I personally enjoy reading Sudha at home. She has been my companion for many years now. I could hardly wait to get a copy on every Thursdays. Now, I have written a small firefox plugin that lets you read Sudha at your ease. Few advantages of this plugin are 1.

It isn't much of trouble when switching languages while typing. All it needs is a toggle that after sometime becomes quite instinctive for the mind, not that easier though it seems when it comes to switching the languages while speaking. Well, at least for me it has not been easier. Everyday I interact with so many people in Kannada that switching back to English sometimes gets me staggering.

So, I got around to sketch this today: This is for an article that questions the prudence of State Government's decision to allocate funds for providing free Electricity to