The government on Monday launched ‘TelugumAta’, an application for Android and Ios-based mobile phones and tabs/pads for providing SMS service in Telugu language. By downloading the application on the smart phones working on the two operating systems, Telugu people across the globe can send short messages to their dear onesin their mother tongue.
Launching the application developed by the A.P. Society for Knowledge Networks, IT Minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah said it was for the first time in the country that SMS service was being made available in a regional language.
He explained that mobile users would get a virtual keyboard in Telugu by downloading the application from the portal >www.teluguvijayam.org . As the fonts embedded in the application were Unicode-registered, they would be displayed without any glitch in all Android and Ios phones, the Minister explained.
Stating that the government was also planning to make it available in other regular/basic operating systems in mobile phones, Mr. Lakshmaiah said A.P. was first Statein the world to get a Unicode membership.
The Minister sent SMSes in Telugu from his mobile phone to a few media persons to mark the launch.
He hoped that the new application would also create new employment opportunities to Telugu linguistic technicians.
Bhasha Samskrutika Shakha
He announced that a new Department, ‘Bhasha Samskrutika Shakha’, would come into being in the New Year and all government websites would also be made available in Telugu along with the English version.