Urdu set to take off on the Web

February 21, 2001

Under the present government's efforts to provide Universal Internet Access, it's now being made available from a large number of small cities and towns all over the country. However, the paucity of local content, especially in Urdu and other Pakistani languages, has made serious minded individuals and organizations wary of the Web's potential as a tool for providing useful information. English is by far the commonest medium of communication on the Internet. Since it is an international language, most people choose to use it unhesitatingly. Now there is a need to promote and develop Urdu websites of Pakistani origin on the Internet.

Towards this end, the Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP), a project of UNDP, managed by IUCN - the World Conservation Union, in Pakistan has taken an important step forward. In collaboration with the National College of the Arts (NCA), it is organizing the first workshop on 'Urdu Web Authoring' - learning how to publish in Urdu on the Internet - to be conducted at NCA, Lahore on 21-22 February 2001. About ten organizations, including NCA, Council of Social Sciences (COSS), South Asia Partnership (SAP), Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), Punjabi Adabi Board, and Punjab Lok Sujag will participate in this training workshop. Pakistan Data Management Systems (PDMS) has developed the software to be used in the training and the subsequent development of Urdu websites. In the coming months, SDNP would organize a series of such workshops in other major cities of Pakistan.

Only recently has the Government of Pakistan promulgated a standard for the Urdu script. Previously there was no such standard, and software houses created their own. Hopefully, all Urdu software, from now on, will conform to this standard and achieve the same level inter-operability that we are used to in the English language.

SDNP has already created a web gateway for all significant development information about Pakistan (www.sdnpk.org). Under this programme, funded by UNDP, more than hundred and seventy development organizations - including a third from the government - have been trained to set up and maintain their websites. This is in addition to thousands of other websites and Internet resources that have been indexed for this Pakistan Development Gateway (PDG). Plans are underway to establish a similar gateway in Urdu as well, so that a larger number of Pakistanis here and abroad will have access to the latest development news and information in a language that they can easily understand.