[Kannada] full article about microsoft story written by Sugata of www.outlookindia.com dated Feb 28th, 2005

[Venkat Kumaraswamy]

full article about microsoft story written by Sugata of www.outlookindia.com dated Feb 28th, 2005
 
Outlook has used just 500 words in print from this article(It was posted yesterday here in the forum). It could not use the rest due to space constraints. The full article would be put up on our Internet site.
Regards,
Sugata.

By Sugata Srinivasaraju

It was a primary school in Argentina. A few years ago computers had been newly installed. Prof. Kenneth Keniston of the MIT went there to understand how children were getting used to the new technology. He asked the instructor how the kids were faring? She said they were picking up things amazingly fast, but her only concern was that the software in the computer was converting little Argentines into little Americans. 

It is a somewhat similar anxiety of erasure of identity that has made writers, linguists, educationists and local language computing experts raise questions about a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that the Government of Karnataka (GoK) has recently entered into with Microsoft for IT education at the primary and secondary school level. 

Dubbing the MOU as the "Microsoftisation of education," the critics want the government to terminate the agreement and ensure that a more multilateral IT education is imparted, instead of allowing just one multinational corporation to "monopolize" the minds of children. In fact, renowned playwright and MLC, Chandrashekar Kambar, has raised the issue in the Upper House of the Karnataka legislature in the recently concluded session. 

The MOU is part of Microsoft’s ‘philanthropic’ effort to accelerate the spread of computer literacy among students and teachers in government schools across India exclusively through Microsoft products. Through ‘Project Shiksha’ they intend to reach out to 3.5 million students and 80,000 teachers in the next five years. To meet this target, they have entered into an agreement with many state governments and Karnataka was the most recent signatory in November 2004.

Eminent Kannada writer and Sahitya Academy award winner, K P Poornachandra Tejasvi, who has been leading the charge against the MOU, in a letter to the government, has accused it of spending crores of rupees in the name of IT education to merely forward the business interests of Microsoft. "When responsible governments across the world are moving towards open source software, which is available free and could be evolved to suit our local needs, why should we remain at the mercy of expensive proprietary software?" He asks.

When we point out that the Microsoft proprietary software is after all coming free for Project Shiksha, he shoots back: "That is what we are made to believe, but read clause II.2 in the MOU it clearly says that the government will set up three IT Academies in ‘a central location’ of Bangalore, Dharwad and Gulbarga and give it to Microsoft for an annual charge of Rs. One [repeat Rs one] to run for five years. They also specify that the government should provide a minimum of 1000-2000 square feet building with ‘electricity, running water, sewer, security and maintenance staff and phone and/or lease lines.’ The government also assures that it would regularly supply students for the IT academies, which is like saying that we will supply regular customers for Microsoft. This means the government has to shell out crores of rupees of taxpayers’ money to help Microsoft carry out its philanthropy."

Additional Chief Secretary and Development Commissioner Chiranjiv Singh, who has responded to Tejasvi’s letter admits that the facts of the matter have come as an "eye-opener" and he would ask the heads of the departments concerned to "examine the issue and take appropriate action." 

US-based Nova Group CEO and President, V M Kumaraswamy, who has started an Internet activism group on the issue and who is currently in Bangalore to petition Chief Minister Dharam Singh and former prime minister Deve Gowda, says that if the government were spending taxpayers money to get some unique technological exposure to our children then we could have thought it was well worth it, but training in Microsoft products only would mean restricting job opportunities for these kids later. 

"The correct approach is to teach children with total open source solutions so that they become marketable once out of school. If they are trained only in Microsoft products they may become less marketable or not marketable at all, judging from the present trend among business houses and governments all over the world," says Kumaraswamy.

"We are not against Microsoft products, but we are against the one vendor policy of the government. It is ethically wrong that a MNC which is fighting monopoly charges in US and European courts is allowed to monopolize government IT initiatives and that too in a very important sector like education which prepares the next generation technologists," Kumaraswamy clarifies and adds that he is contemplating a PIL in the matter very soon.
Eminent linguist at Kannada University, Prof. K V Narayana, agrees: "Project Shiksha is only advantage Microsoft. Also, I have doubts if the government is capable of creating infrastructure and the learning mileu that it has promised in the MOU. One needs to just take a look at the government schools to understand what I mean. They still do not have toilets and don't get textbooks on time. In other words there is no preparedness for the technological leap that it claims to be envisioning." 

Kambar says he is also concerned about the lack of transparency in the whole affair. "They are neither ready to share the curriculum nor the source code for their products. With source code especially there are a lot of security issues involved," he says. 
 
Nandu Pradhan, director, Public Sector and Governments, Micorsoft India dismisses these allegations: "Microsoft is a responsible global citizen. Project Shiksha was launced by Bill Gates himself when he came to India in 2002 and the idea behind it is to empower the masses. We simply want to help the common man join the knowledge economy. About 20 million US dollars has been set aside till 2007 for the project," he says.


When we ask him about the monopoly charge, Pradhan gives the analogy of a driving school. "When we go to a driving school, we may learn on one brand of vehicle and may later end up buying a different brand of vehicle. So what we are doing through Project Shiksha is we are only teaching basic skills and fuelling IT literacy. We are investing quality time and are developing a top class curriculum. We will also pay for the faculty that teaches children, besides offering licensed copies of software."

But another issue that has complicated matters for Microsoft is the Kannada Language Interface Package (LIP) that it has developed for the Windows platform. Tejasvi, Kambar and others have accused Microsoft of not caring to consult local language computing experts or linguists while developing LIP. "There are nine universities in Karnataka and one Kannada University which deals with language related issues, not one person in these institutions have been consulted," they say. 

Countering the charge, Raveesh Gupta, marketing in-charge of localization at Microsoft India told Outlook that over 500 language users, including U R Ananthamurthy, were consulted. "In fact Jnanpith laureate Ananthamurthy was the keynote speaker at the launch of the Kannada package. Also, we need to understand that the package is not cast in stone, it is an ongoing process. We are open and what we have done is in no way comprehensive," he said. Microsoft shared nine names of Kannada experts that it consulted, only Ananthamurthy's name was recognizable in the list. But he has been erroneously described as a 'linguist.'  
 
"I am really disappointed that some people are jeopardizing the destiny of our language. Also, the government is encouraging Microsoft at the cost of many local companies which have worked on Kannada software for years now. At one time there were 26 companies working on Kannada software, now there are 4 left, with the entry of Microsoft those four too will cease to exist," Tejasvi paints a grim picture.


		
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