'Fonts for Kannada software will be ready within a year'

The work on OCR is in progress, says Chidananda Gowda

Unicode has been prepared for the Kannada software. Full-fledged fonts to be used in Kannada software will be ready within a year, said Kuvempu University former  Vice Chancellor Prof K Chidananda Gowda.

Speaking to mediapersons on the sidelines of a book release function here on Thursday, he said in Unicode 12 types of fonts have been used. Each font is named after Jnanpith award litterateurs of Kannada. Optical character reconstruction (OCR) facilities need to be developed for the Kannada software. The work on the OCR is in progress.

At present one can not modify an article that is scanned and sent through computer. With OCR facility, one can modify the scanned articles. Karnataka Software Development Committee (KSDC) has one more year term. The Committee has already prepared Braille software in Kannada. With this even a person suffering from visual impairment can read Kannada on computer,Prof Gowda said.

Speaking after releasing  ‘Gandhi-Nehru Ayda patragalu’ and ‘Maguvina bhashe mathu shikshaka kaipidi,’ under the aegis of National Book Trust and AIT College, he said Gandhi and Nehru had differences of opinion. Inspite of it, they had cordial relation with each other. Nehru had considered Gandhi as his 'Guru.'

On the  translation of letters exchanged between Gandhi and Nehru, litterateur Belavadi Manjunath said  there is a need to study indepth on the path followed by Nehru and Gandhi. “The letters in English were compiled by Arjundev. It has been translated to Kannada by Abdul Rehman. It gives an insight into the history on India during Freedom movement.”

He said that Gandhi had believed in the administrative skills of Nehru. The book has 94 letters written by Gandhi to Nehru.

“In each letter, he asks on Kamala Nehru and Indira Gandhi. There are reference to family issues in the letter. The letters written by Nehru did not include any family issues,” he said.

On ‘Maguvina bhashe mathu shikshaka kaipidi,’ Writer D Nalina said the work of Krishnakumar has been translated by Sudha Hegde Adukala.

National Book Trust editorial wing head Nagarajappa said that NBT was started in 1957 under the guidance of Nehru. NBT brings out books in 34 languages.
AIT College Principal Dr C K Subba Rao and others were present.