e-Inclusion & Localisation, Winner 2013

TDIL Programme initiated by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) is an apex body for the development and maintenance of standardisation of Indian languages to achieve communication without language barrier in the field of ICT. The programme has the objective to develop information-processing tools to facilitate human machine interaction in Indian languages and to develop technologies to access multilingual knowledge resources. The benefits of information technology can reach to the common people, only when software tools and human machine interface systems are available in one’s own language.

Objectives of TDIL :

• Research and Development of Technology, Software Tools and Applications for Indian Lan-guages.
• Proliferation of Language Technology products and solutions.
• Development of Standards for linguistic resources, tools and applications for interoperability.

Initiatives have been taken for long term research for the development of machine translation system, using which, data available in English can be translated to various Indian languages or data can be translated from one Indian language to other Indian language. Around 500 Indian Language technology domain experts (linguist, researchers, consortia, PhD students and developers) have registered and taken the benefits of resources available on the portal. Tools for common user are also made available such as rupee typing tool, Sakal bharti font, dic-tionaries, fonts, converters and keyboard Manager etc. Till date, the portal has 3 crores hits and 35,000 unique users have visited their online machine translation system.

‘Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Program’ is Mumbai’s largest communication initiative on CSA Awareness through toll-free tele-helpline service. The programme aims to reach 1000 schools and 1 million children and their families over the next one year. CHILDLINE Project across India is supported by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development under the Integrated Child Protection Scheme.

Launched by CHILDLINE India Foundation (CIF), the campaign involves training and certifying lady volunteers to deliver the story session in school classrooms.

CHILDLINE found that though 53 per cent of Indian children experience sexual abuse, the reporting is extremely low since information about the possibility of abuse isn’t imparted to children. CIF’s Program aims to break the communi-cation barrier about the issue between parents and children and encourages children to break the si-lence about a ‘touching problem’ and openly communicate on the subject with a trusted adult. Using a unique story narration format delivered in school classrooms, it provides parents with an understanding of CSA and methods to deal with it.

A 30 minute classroom session starts with the volunteer introducing herself as a didi from CHILDLINE. Then she conducts the story telling ses-sion for approximately 20 minutes, which also includes review questions and clarifies any doubts that the children may have. The stories are told using the flipcharts as a visual aid. Post this, the volunteer conducts the Label Sheet exercise with the children and then hands out the sealed ‘Letter to Parents’ to the children. Since 2011, CHILDLINE has taken the programme to over 250 schools in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane through trained lady volunteers.

e-Sakhyam is a website with an aim to provide maximum accessibility and usability to people with disabilities. As a result, this website can be viewed from a variety of devices such as Desktop/Laptop computers, web-enabled mobile devices, WAP phones, PDAs. A visually impaired person can access this portal using assistive technologies, such as screen readers and screen magnifiers.

The online case management system is integrated with this portal. Through this system, a citizenn(PwD) can lodge the complaint, views the status of the complaint, receives SMS alert when the case is lodged, when the case is considered for hearing and after disposal of the complaint. Verification of authenticity of disability certificates on line by State Commission for Persons with Disabilities is carried out online through the portal.

The stakeholders are:

• Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) as common citizen.
• State Commission for Persons with Disabilities, Odisha (SCPD) and Medical Officers issuing Disabilities certificate.
• Single point grievance lodging and redressal for the citizen, increased reach to the Commission(even in rural area citizen can access through CSCs).e-Sakhyam has become one stop authenticand standardised information centre on the various activities taken up by State Commissioner along with schemes, projects, acts/rules, documents.