Net Access still a difficult task

Pune: Sandeep Kotrekar is a manager working in a private IT company. He wanted an internet connection on shifting to his new flat two months ago. But this proved more tedious than purchasing the flat itself. “No internet service provider (ISP) was available, as my flat is close to the National Defence Academy. Citing security reasons, officials there objected to laying the cable. I managed to get a connection only after coercion and interruption from bigwigs,” he says.

Sandeep is not the only one who is facing a problem logging on to the net, as various parts in the city are faced with similar constraints of poor accessibility. While major ISPs are in the open sweating it out, customers are feeling the heat. Tata Indicom recently launched the wireless USB modem connectivity, followed by Reliance Infocom, while Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has launched its IPTV service on a broadband platform. Hathway, which provides internet through cable, has also offered to give modems free, while Sify has slashed rates. There are some small players, like You Telecom, which have a presence in selected areas.

If this sounds like the war of the ISPs, it is not true. Those who approach these providers for connections have their own stories to tell. One who wants to get a BSNL connection has to get a landline phone first. The waiting lists of both, the telephone and the net connection, are a test of patience. Some other ISPs might be ready to give a connection, but the speed, customer support and billing of these companies have disconcerted many.

While admitting that a waiting list does exist, Ramesh Mahajan, public relation officer of BSNL, says, “There might be a few problem in some parts of the city. We are unable to provide service to new townships and colonies, where our infrastructure is not available. But we have given access to those townships where we were intimated in advance.” A representative from the Hathway company said, “We provide service to those customers where our network exists. Where it is not feasible, we hand over the service to other cable service company. Problems arising thereafter are taken care of by the respecive company. But that happens with any other ISP.” Officials from Tata Indicom and Reliance Infocom did not respond despite repeated calls.

PROBLEMS GALORE
• Low wireless access:
Only few ISPs have wireless internet facilities in the city, many of which falter in the fringe areas. Those providing internet through mobiles pose a problem when the call traffic is high. Coverage strength is also a problem.
• No cable:
Internet through cable is speedy enough, but many areas, especially sensitive zones, do not have the cable network for access.
• Immodest modems:
Those going for USB modems have to shell out Rs 3,000 to Rs 4,000 for the apparatus. The amount is not recoverable after the service is discontinued. A customer is therefore forced to find a willing buyer.
• Low customer support:
Small companies often do not have adequate customer support facilities. There are complaints from customers of automated responses and non-availability of officials to cater to calls.

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Log in — the desi way

Domain Names In Indian Languages To Become A Reality
Pune: The web is set to reach new heights in India as use of several Internet Domain Names (IDN) got a thumbs up at an international meet held at New Delhi recently.

Internet Corporation on Assigned Numeric Names (ICANN), the apex body, which controls domain names, discussed the subject at ICANN’s 31st public meeting in the capital on Friday.

Mahesh Kulkarni, the programme head of Punebased Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), gave a presentation on ‘development of Internationalised Domain Names (IDN) in local languages’.

“There are two sides to this issue—policywise and technical. We have recommended to the Department of Information Technology and ICANN to bring some policy changes to enable IDNs in local languages. The work is going on for two years but it has reached an advanced stage now,” said Kulkarni. India has 22 official languages and domain names in 13 languages have already been tested. But the issue now is allowing top level domain names (.com, .gov, .in, etc) in Indian languages.

Kulkarni said, “Given the complexities of our languages, the issue has to be resolved systematically. The main risk in allowing IDNs in Indian languages will be from phishing sites (who indulge in internet frauds using duplicate domain names). Keeping this in view, we have made some recommendations.”

According to him, if the suggestions are accepted, it could pave the way for email addresses in local languages.
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Risks and the solutions

There are 22 languages written in 11 scripts. Many languages are written in more than one script — Konkani is written in Roman, Devnagari, Malyalam and Kannada, while 54 languages (including dialects) are written in Devnagari.
Solution: Deciding one script for any given language, on which a decision is yet to be taken.

There are many characters common to more than one languages. Making it easier for fishing sites to pose as original websites.
Solution: Reserving specific names for important sites and not allowing similar characters for domain names. A variant table of characters for each language has been prepared so that character set of one language is not copied to other characters.

Many languages have similar sounding words (homophones) and similarly spelled words (homographs) making the access difficult as well as prone to risk.
Solution: Unicode sets for each character has been finalised and only homographs are focused, restricting uncommon characters from using in domain names.

There is a risk that some obscene words or phrases might be used by some elements to register the names.
Solution: A list has been prepared of such words which will not be allowed to use, a la European countries.

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Pune-the foreign visitors’ hub

Pune: After hosting a large flock of foreign students over the years, the city is now seeing an increasing number of foreign visitors who are not students. Records show that foreigners who come to the city for non-academic purposes are growing in the last five years.

Known as the Oxford of the East, the city boasts of a large number of foreign-national students. The number has been on the rise. Yet, the growth seems to be downwards on percentage basis as records show increasing number of non-student foreign national visiting the city.

Every foreign national residing in the city for more than 180 days has to register at the Foreigners’ Registration Branch in the Police Commisionerate. The records available with Foreigners’ Registration Branch show that 4,214 students registered in the last year as compared to 3,445 students in 2006, which shows a growth of 22 per cent. In 2005, the number of students registered was 3,784, while in 2004, the number was 2,900. This shows that number of foreign student dropped in 2006 while 2005 had witnessed a growth of almost 30 per cent.

At the same period, overall foreign visitors have increased relatively. In 2007, there have been 6,153 visitors compared to 5,024 in the previous year. That amounts to a growth of 22.5 per cent. The growth in the preceding year was 9 per cent. The exception was in 2006, when there was a decline. The registration at the Foreigners’ Registration Branch is categorised on the basis of visa. They are put in student, tourist and others categories.

“The number of students is large but the overall visitors are growing. At times, the manpower in our office seems inadequate,” says inspector S.V. Gadgil, who is in charge of the registration office. As most foreign tourists leave the city within days of their arrival, their count in the records is low. Spouses and relatives of students, those on medical visa or other purpose are included in other category.

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CYG ahead, it’s boom time for hospitality industry

Pune: With the number of people visiting the city on the rise, the hospitality industry in Pune is striving hard to cope with increasing demand for rooms. This has also resulted in new luxury hotels coming up in and around the city.

The number of business class visitors to the city are also on the increase and hence the average occupancy rate of hotels in the city now is 80 per cent. A substantial increase in this number is anticipated with the approaching Commonwealth Youth Games (CYG) that is scheduled from 12th to 18th October. Adding to this will be the onset of the festival season, beginning August, that will see more people visiting the city.

According to the estimates of the CYG organisers, at least 2,000 athletes and officials will participate in the games. This inflow of visitors will coincide with the tourist season and Diwali, putting more pressure on the already burdened infrastructure. Taking this into consideration, some hotels have even started advance reservation for the month of October. According to sources, the hotels have already started getting many enquiries for reservations for October.

Keeping this in mind, many star category and budget hotels are coming up in Pune. Arun Nayar, president of the Poona Hoteliers Association and director (operations) of Pride Hotels is confident that the city is ready to face the impending challenge. “Our estimate is that there will be at least a demand for 3,000 rooms in October. Out of this, around 1,300 rooms will be in the Balewadi sports village and around 1,700 rooms will be required in the city hotels,” he says.

The existing capacity of city hotels is 3,000 rooms. But many of these rooms are being occupied by business and tourist visitors. Hence, the need for new luxury hotels. According to Nayar, with the completion of these hotels, some 3,000 additional rooms will be available. The new starcategory hotels coming up in Pune include, ‘The O’, Royal Orchid Centre, Saint Laurn, Holiday Inn and Westin. There are some budget hotels also coming up. Hinjewadi and Wakad areas have also seen many service apartments coming up.

But there are some who are sceptical about the new developments in the industry. Ravi Karandeekar, a Punebased real estate consultant for the last 12 years says, “The new hotels will cater only to the upper business class clients. The economy conscious visitors have very little choice. Shortage of accommodations is a real problem and the city needs more

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When Mahatma called himself Farmer

Pune: The irony could not have been more severe. In a country where farmer suicides are a daily occurrence, the Father of the Nation professed himself a farmer.

When Mahatma Gandhi said, “True India lies in villages and its countless farmers,” he was not just mouthing meaningless words. Though the world recognised him as a barrister, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi counted himself as a farmer.

Gandhi visited the Bhandarkar Oriental Reasearch Institute (BORI) here on September 1, 1945. He was accompanied by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur and Manilal Gandhi. After watching the research work at the institute, Gandhi was requested to give his comments in the visitor book. “Bahut anand hua,” (I am very pleased) is what he wrote. In the ‘occupation’ column, Gandhi wrote, ‘khedut’, which in Gujarati means ‘farmer’.

For many years, no one took notice of this fact. The record surfaced in 2001 when Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar visited the institute. M.G. Dhadphale, honorary secretary of the BORI, says: “Sharad Pawar came here and observed our work. When he came to know that Mahatma Gandhi had signed in the visitor book, he was curious to find Mahatma’s occupation. After the records were dug up, the fact sprung up.”

The same record shows that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had also wrote their profession as a ‘farmer’ and Rajkumari Amrita Kaur wrote ‘deshsevika’ while Manilal Gandhi wrote ‘Editor, Indian Opinion’ in the occupation column.

Renovation work to start soon

Pune: A year after Union finance minister Dr P. Chidambaram declared a donation of Rs 7.5 crore for renovation of Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) in the city, the groundwork on the research centre is all set to start soon.
The institute conducts research in ancient Sanskrit and other classical manuscripts. Last year, BORI, along with the other four institutions across the country associated with Mahatma Gandhi, was allocated Rs 30 crore to commemorate 150th anniversary of the 1857 freedom struggle.

Prof M.G. Dhadphale, honorary secretary of the institute, said, “We have so far received Rs 5 crore of the Rs 7.5 crore fund. The renovation plan includes some new constructions, extension of library and a new hostel of international standard. Computer supported reader’s rooms and classrooms for scholars would also be provided,” he said. Some buildings of the institute are classified as heritage structures and their conservation work will also be undertaken, Dhadphale said.

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Lost in translation!

PUNE: When Durga Dixit, director of the Aikyabharati Pratishtan gets requests for translation jobs, she just has to call up her regular translators and get the job done. For, Dixit has a group of trusted people who can translate documents into target languages. When the quantity of the work increases and she faces a deadline, however, she feels the crunch. There are just not enough people to go around. Many agencies have the same story, a dearth of skilled translators in the city.

As Pune grows into an international industry and IT centre, translators and interpreters are in high demand. And, surprisingly, the situation is worse for Indian languages. "There sure is a scarcity of translators, especially from vernacular languages to English and vice versa. Most of our work comes in these languages. The quantity of work is growing and the job can be done even at home. Still, there are just not enough skilled persons. And, where Pune loses, Mumbai gains. "Trained manpower for this work is needed. We have proposed that the government start a new course aiming at translation from English to vernacular languages," says Dixit.

BITS International handles translation works for domestic as well as foreign clients. Chairman and managing director of the organisation, Sandeep Nulkar says, "Skilled manpower is not increasing at the same rate as the work is. One problem is the lack of specialised courses for this purpose. Even existing courses have not been tailored keeping in mind the concerns of practising translators. Since translation needs special skills, even though the number of students learning languages is increasing, that does not amount to the availability of the good translators."

Interestingly, Pune seems to do well in grooming translation talent. "Delhi and Pune are cities where a conductive ambience for emerging translators exists. Even Bangalore does not have Masters-level courses in as many languages as we have here. That is why so many IT companies there are hiring translators from Pune," Nulkar says. Madhura Datar, founder of the Language Services Bureau, has 45 years of experience in translating. "There are many translators, but professional ones is hard to find," she says. "For some not-so-common and Indian languages, the problem is more acute." Datar has trained many students over the years and still teaches those willing to learn. "The situation has changed very much in the last few years. Though more people are learning the skills, there’s scope for everyone."

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(The news can also be read at Times of India site here)

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Chinese learners dwindling in Pune

Pune: Chinese may be the buzzword in kitchens, shops and businesses, but when it comes to the language, there seem to be few takers. Institutes teaching the Chinese language are seeing a fall in the number of students opting for the course.

Though there are few establishments in the city that offer such a course, their enrollments were rising until a couple of year ago. Anagha Natekar, co-ordinator of the course in Symbiosis Institute of Foreign Languages (SIFL), told TOI, “It is our personal perception that the Chinese bubble has burst. We have a capacity of 25 students, but even that number is hard to achieve.”

Agrees Ketan Vadke who arranges personalised Chinese courses: “Compared to other languages, demand for Chinese seems limited. However, by itself, the awareness about the language is definitely rising. We usually see business people and professionals enrolling for language-course.”

Swati Somani, training co-ordinator and counselor with Chrysalis institute has a different take. She asserts that, comparatively, the last two to three years have seen a rise in the number of students. “Since there are few who know the language, lot of people opt for it to work as translators and interpreters. And, there is a fair bit of money in it,” she said.

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