SDNP organizes international workshop on Urdu Internet Names System in Islamabad

July 29, 2001

Recently there has been a proliferation of the Internet in Pakistan, its growth fuelled by the Universal Internet Access scheme of the government, coupled with drastic reduction in bandwidth rates. No longer confined to major cities alone, the Internet is now accessible from hundreds of small cities and towns all over the country. However, it's still being used by a small minority that can read and write English.

What does Internet offer to a Pakistani, who is part of a vast majority that doesn't know English? One hardly needs any complex search techniques to realize the paucity of Pakistani content on the Web. One of the principal reasons for this unfortunate state of affairs is the difficulty of using Urdu - and other Pakistani languages - on the Internet. It is also exacerbating the already stark 'digital divide' - between the haves and have-nots - to between those who are well versed in English and those who are not.

Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP), a global programme of UNDP, managed by IUCN - The World Conservation Union, in Pakistan, has been trying to address this question. During the last few months, it has organized a number of training workshops in Urdu and Sindhi Web publishing, in addition to a variety of other initiatives like the development of district websites and cyber community centres in remote areas of the country.

Urdu Web publishing has been facilitated by the adoption of a standard code plate for Urdu last year. In addition, some progress has also been made to incorporate it under the Unicode scheme, but so far there has been no concerted effort to set up domain names, email and Web addresses in Urdu. Without putting such a system in place, true and meaningful Urdu Internetworking would not be possible.

In collaboration with the Multilingual Internet Names Consortium (MINC) - a non-profit, non-governmental, international organization - and with the support of the National Language Authority (NLA), Pakistan, SDNP is holding an international workshop on Urdu Internet domain names, keywords and routing at Hotel Holiday Inn, Islamabad, on July 28. Professor Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman, the Federal Minister for Science and Technology will be the chief guest in the inaugural session, which will be followed by technical sessions.

This workshop will provide a forum for national experts in Urdu informatics to deliberate on the issues of developing an Urdu Internet names system and its applications. A working group will be formed at the end of the workshop which will carry forward this work and liaise with MINC in future. Apart from the CEO of MINC, representatives of the Arabic Internet Names Consortium (AINC) are also going to participate in this event via a teleconferencing facility.

The Urdu Internet Working Group, to be formed as a result of this workshop, under the auspices of the NLA, will go a long way in removing the technical impediments in the use of Urdu on the Internet.