Indian language support in phones
Government has mandated support for Indian languages in all mobile phones to be sold in the country from July 1, 2017 onward. The government has included the Indian language support for mobile phone as per IS 16333 to the schedule of ‘Electronics and Information Technology Goods (Requirement for compulsory Registration) Order, 2012. The new standard mandates mobile phone companies to provide message typing facility in English, Hindi and a regional language of their users choice. The notification mandates both smartphones and feature phones to provide language support.
Significance
It will pave way for connecting next 1 billion people most of whom will be non-English speaking.
The order is in line with Digital India vision of bridging digital divide.
The support for Indian language has potential to grow e-governance transactions, e-commerce business etc multifold, once non-English speaking people are able to access mobile platform in their own language.
