ABSTRACT

Information Technology – Tamil Virtual University - Conference on Tamil 16-bit All Character Encoding System held on 2.9.2006 – Adoption of the recommendations made in the Conference-Constitution of Task Force and entrusting work to formulate action plan for implementation of the recommendations – Orders – Issued.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT

G.O. (Ms) No.13
Dated:10.11.2006

Read:

G.O.Ms.No.17, IT Department, dated 13.06.1999

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ORDER

In the G.O. read above, orders were issued announcing a unique 8-bit Tamil encoding system.   Soon after these standards were announced, a number of application software systems in Tamil, like Tamil word processors, Tamil OCR, Tamil search engines, etc., were developed.  However, these 8-bit encoding schemes could not provide code positions for all Tamil characters in the encoding chart due to the limitation in space (Total available space is only 128 locations).

2. Realizing the limitations of the 8-bit encoding and the present 16-bit Unicode Tamil, the Government, in 1999 itself, announced, at the time of declaring 8-bit encoding  standard for Tamil, that an efficient 16-bit character encoding will be developed for Tamil and will be submitted to the Unicode consortium for incorporation in the Unicode standard.  Accordingly, the Government initiated action in the direction through the Tamil Virtual University (TVU).  The TVU formed a committee with experts, pooled from KaNithamizh Sangam for this purpose.  The Committee developed an all Character 16-bit encoding scheme for Tamil.  The proposed scheme was presented at the TamilNet conferences held during the years 2000,2001,2002 and 2003 in Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, California (USA) and Chennai.

3. Meantime the Government have initiated action through the TVU for the submission of the new scheme to the Unicode consortium for consideration.  In order to facilitate the submission of a revised character encoding standard for Tamil for incorporation into Unicode, the Government became an Associate Member in the Unicode Consortium in 1999.  Afterwards, series of actions were taken by the  TVU for testing  the proposed scheme and processing the same for incorporation in the Unicode Standard.

4. The Chairman, TVU has stated that the testing of the all character encoding scheme for Tamil, containing 24 X16 code points was completed and the results were uploaded in the Government website requesting for comments from the  Tamil Diaspora.  The Government submitted the above scheme to the MIT, GOI and to the Unicode Consortium for consideration.  The Unicode Consortium suggested to put the proposed all character encoding scheme in the Private Use Area (PUA) of Unicode, so as to put the scheme in use by the Tamil  Diaspora.  Accordingly a new keyboard driver and a new Unicode font for the new encoding were developed in order to test the new encoding in PUA under various operating platforms and in all possible applications.  The all character new encoding was thus placed in the Unicode block E200 to E38F on 24th June 2005.

5. A conference on Tamil 16-bit  All Character Encoding was organized on 2nd September 2006 by the TVU to review the comments received and to plan further course of action to declare one single true 16-bit all character encoding scheme for Tamil as a standard in the place of existing 8-bit encoding standards and for moving the same into Unicode.  The conference was presided over by Prof. V.C.Kulandaiswamy, Chairman, TVU and inaugurated by Thiru Dhayanithi Maran, the Hon'ble  Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Government of India.  The Conference was attended to by the delegates from Singapore and Sri Lanka.   Software professionals from major firms such as IBM, MICROSOFT and Tamil Software  developers in Tamil Nadu and in the other parts of the country and abroad participated.  In his inaugural address, the Hon'ble Minister said that the new scheme shall be reviewed and revised based on the comments received and tested on different platforms and in different applications like E-Governance, web publication, etc.  The Hon’ble Minister further said that creation of a corpus fund will be considered for testing and development and for encouraging migration and conversion to the new encoding.  Hon’ble Minister desired that we should work with a united mind  and on a time bound programme, so that the 16-bit encoding for Tamil is available for implementation in the e-Governance project in  January 2007.

6. Following the inaugural session, a Technical session for open discussion for the delegates to express their views on Tamil 16 Bit All character Encoding system was held on 2.9.2006. The Session was chaired by Dr.V.C.Kulandaiswamy and a report on the details of the activities towards the development of the new encoding scheme was presented by Dr.M.Ponnavaikko, former Director, TVU.  The delegates participated  actively in the discussion and gave useful suggestions.  The Technical Committee constituted by the TVU with   Dr.M. Anandakrishnan  as  Chairman, Dr. M. Ponnavaikko  as convener, Dr.N.Balakrishnan, Associate Director, IISc., Bangalore, Dr.M.N. Cooper of Modular Infotech., Tmt. Swaran Latha, Scientist E, MCIT and a few other Experts as special invitees  deliberated on the issue in the afternoon Session. 80% of the participants voted for the expeditious implementation of the 16-bit Tamil All Character Encoding as unique encoding standard for Tamil.

7. In the Conference held on 2.9.2006 the following recommendations were made:-

 (i) Recommended to consider the formation of Task Force to co-ordinate the activities related to the development of an acceptable 16-bit All Character Encoding for Tamil Language through appropriate testing and validation with the following mandates;

1. a)     To finalize the 16-bit Tamil All  Character system of encoding by end December 2006;
2. b)     To test extensively  the 16-bit Tamil All Character scheme of encoding for critical major applications such as e-Governance, web publishing, etc;
3. c)      To disseminate the proposed 16-bit Tamil All Character encoding extensively worldwide, and
4. d)     To convene an International Conference for obtaining the final consensus on the 16-bit Tamil All Character encoding from the Tamil Diaspora so that implementation of 16-bit Tamil All Character scheme of encoding may be considered, if the consensus is in favour of the 16-bit Tamil All Character encoding.

(ii) To take  action to publicize  the proposed 16-bit Tamil All Character scheme of encoding in the countries where Tamil is an official language so as to get their comments on the proposed scheme;

 (iii)  To create a corpus fund  for providing financial and policy support for migrating contents and developments already done in the current environment;

(iv) The corpus fund created may include funds for developing tools and drivers to support the 16-bit Tamil All Character encoding in different platforms such as windows, Macintosh, Linux and Unix for free distribution; and

(v) The Government of Tamil Nadu to become a full voting member of Unicode Consortium, so that the State can directly submit proposals to Unicode consortium for adopting Tamil-16 bit All Character encoding into Unicode.

8. The Govt. after careful examination have decided to accept and to adopt the recommendations made in the Conference referred to in paragraph 7 above.

9.The Government, accordingly, constitute a Task Force with the following members:-

Task Force

10. The Government direct that the Task Force shall formulate action plan for the implementation of the following recommendations made in the conference held on 2.9.2006:-

1. (i)      Action to publicize the proposed 16-bit Tamil All Character scheme of encoding in the countries, where Tamil is an official language so as to get their comments on the proposed scheme;
2. (ii)      To create a corpus fund for providing financial and policy support for migrating contents and developments already done in the current environment;
3. (iii)      The corpus fund to be created shall include funds for developing tools and drivers to support the 16-bit Tamil All Character encoding in different platforms, such as windows, Macintosh, Linux and Unix for free distribution; and
4. (iv)      The Government of Tamil Nadu shall become a full voting member of Unicode Consortium, so that the State can directly submit proposals to Unicode consortium for adopting Tamil-16 bit All Character encoding into Unicode.

11. The Chairman, TVU has recommended that the following persons in overseas may also be considered for inclusion in the Task force so as to have an International representation:-

(1) Mr.Mani Manivannan, California, USA

mmanivannan@gamil.com

(2) Dr. K.Kalyanasundaram,

RUE DAS APLES 59,

1030, BUSSIGNY, Switzerland,

kalyan.geo@yahoo.com

(3) Dr. Kalaimani, Singapore

The Government accept the recommendation of the Chairman TVU.  They accordingly request the Chairman of the Task Force to seek the advise of the above overseas experts over email/correspondence if he so desires.

12. The Chairman, Task Force is requested to take necessary follow-up action in this regard and send a report to the Government at an early date.

(BY ORDER OF THE GOVERNOR )

C.CHANDRAMOULI
SECRETARY TO GOVERNMENT

To

The Chairman, Tamil Virtual University, Chennai-113.

The Director, Tamil Virtual University, Chennai-113.

The Managing Director, ELCOT, Chennai-35.

The OSD, e-Governance  Directorate, Chennai-35.

All Members of Task Force

Copy to:

All Secretary’s to Government, Chennai-9

Chief Minister’s Office, Chennai-9

Finance (BPE) Department, Chennai-9

All Sections in IT Department, Chennai-9.

Private Secretary to Chief Secretary, Chennai-9.

Private Secretary to Secretary, IT Department, Chennai-9.

SF/SC

/Forwarded / By Order /

Section Officer.