Information Society Watch

Infochange features, Frederick Noronha

The article discusses the primary barrier to expanding computer literacy to rural india, viz. the lack of local language based software. For children coming from underprivileged backgrounds, introduction to computers should be facilitated via applications that are based on the mother tongue as this will eliminate the initial difficulties to a great extent. Realizing this, some people have actively started programmes which address this critical need, which seek to familiarize rural students with computers by providing them software with local language interfaces. However, in India there is still a huge scope of development in this critical area, without which the aim of achieving computer literacy amongst the masses will remain a pipe dream.

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