Indian fonts may be mandatory for mobile phones sold in the country according to new standards for handsets being finalised by the government, Ram Sewak Sharma, chairman at the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said on Tuesday. The Bureau of Indian Standards is expected to notify the standards that will require handsets to be able to render Indian font messages as well as allow users to type in Hindi, Tamil and other Indian languages, by end of April 2016.
“Many a times, the phones available in our market have Korean or Chinese fonts… On many phones, if you receive a message in an Indian language, it appears as gibberish. Once these standards are notified, all mobile phone handsets that come into India must have our fonts” said Mr. Sharma.
The Bureau is working with the Department of Electronics and Information Technology in the IT ministry and the Indian Cellular Association, which represents mobile handset and component manufacturing industry, to work out these standards.
The government had initiated a move to promote Indian fonts on digital interfaces in 2011, when Mr. Sharma was in charge of the electronics and IT department.
Call to websitesThe TRAI chairman also called for more applications and websites to develop multi-lingual interfaces. “So far, the impact of digital services has been more in the assisted services mode, so you go to someone and he helps you book a train ticket online. This must move into self-service mode now,” Mr Sharma said at the India Digital summit.
The TRAI chairman welcomed the move by some e-commerce websites to offer their services in Hindi, Tamil and other languages as well.
Government websites have gone bilingual and offer Hindi as well as English versions for now, Mr. Shama said.
