Chandamama launches online editions in Indian languages

Popular children's magazine Chandamama is now available online in Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil (Marathi & Oriya are coming up). The sites use Unicode and are very elegantly designed. It seems the group is also trying to bring previous print issue online however they pertain for the duration 1947 to 1965.

Chandamama was the brainchild of filmmakers B Nagi Reddi and his friend Chakrapani who edited the magazine. Chandamama has been a popular source of Indian folklore, mythology and history in the form of stories. Since 1975 Nagi Reddi's son Vishwanath edits the magazine.

The online portal comes in the wake of Chandamama being recently acquired by Mumbai based Geodesic, known for its IM system Mundu. On the anvil are the plans to produce films, video and interactive books and CDs based on the magazines. [News source]

Yojana now available online too

Yojana, a premier monthly published by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, is now available online at its own website http://www.yojana.gov.in. It’s commendable that the government realized that the publication, one of the best sources of meaningful discussion on socio-economic issues and government developmental policies, should be made available to the young people who are increasingly using the Internet. More commendable is the fact that the website is made available in 12 Indian languages Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Assamese, Malayalam, Marathi, Telugu, Gujarati, Urdu, Kannada, Punjabi and Oriya apart from English.

The good looking website will be a boon for research scholars & students who for years have been following the print publication for various competitive examinations. Yojana is also working on digitization of its entire archives spanning to 51 years of its publication. [Source]

Govt to launch 700cr National Translation Mission

To enable easy use of Hindi in Government offices the Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology (CSTT) plans to launch a website that will auto-translate English words (we fail to understand though how will this help quick translation, but then this is GOI). Also on the anvil is an ambitious 700 cr "National Translation Mission" (don't get too excited, this is yet to be approved by the planning commission).

The 5 year mission is aimed at creating Hindi translation from famous works in English and other foreign languages with subject matter ranging from Economics to Geography, History and Science & Technology. CSTT claims to have created standard Hindi Terminology for about 9 lacs English words and 6 lacs words from Kannada, Konkani, Bodo and Oriya in its 37 year term.

Commendable work, but we wonder if it has found any real-world application. Yet for the sake of Hindi we hope CSTT succeeds. [Read the full story in Hindi]