Tuesday, July 29, 2014


For a language that is spoken by 10 crore people, content is sparse

Sujatha, a Chennai-based homemaker, has set for herself the task of updating the Telugu Wikipedia with details of all the districts in Andhra Pradesh.
“I asked others but no one joined me in adding ‘edits’. They said they were too busy,” she says.
For a language that is spoken by 10 crore people, including a tech-savvy population, content in the 11-year-old Telugu Wikipedia is sparse and growing slowly with 20,000 articles added in the last one decade.
T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, Access to Knowledge Programme of Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), said Telugu Wikipedia was lagging behind its other Indian-language counterparts despite there being no other content repository in Telugu.
The reason is not lack of writers in the language. There are 1,000 to 2,000 active Telugu bloggers writing on topics ranging from poetry to politics. In fact, the Telugu Wikipedia was started by such bloggers.
But they are reluctant to contribute to the Telugu Wikipedia and prefer blogging because they can see their names after adding the content. Rahimanuddin Shaik, Programme Officer and system operator for Telugu Wikipedia at CIS, said, “You could call it the ‘identity crisis’ of Telugu Wikipedia writers.”
In 2006-07, an attempt was made to induce content in the Telugu Wikipedia by injecting 30,000 ‘articles’ by a bot, a Python-based script. They were one-liners about villages in Andhra Pradesh, introduced with the expectation that people would add more content. That effort did trigger 5,000 articles.
Later, in 2013, the Telugu Wikipedia became more collaborative and Hyderabad University associated itself with it by hosting Telugu Wikipedia events on its Golden Threshold campus.
One thought is that school students can help the Telugu Wikipedia grow. Mr. Vishnu Vardhan said that even if students simply added their school lessons, content could expand on the Wikipedia.
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Tuesday, July 1, 2014

State committed to promote Telugu, says Deputy Speaker

Deputy Speaker of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly Mandali Buddha Prasad addressing a meeting in Kakinada on Sunday. Photo: Special Arrangement.
The HinduDeputy Speaker of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly Mandali Buddha Prasad addressing a meeting in Kakinada on Sunday. Photo: Special Arrangement.
He addressed a meeting organised by the city-based Aaswadana Sahiti Samiti to felicitate scholar Betavolu Ramabrahmam with ‘Dantu Bhaskara Rao Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award for Telugu Poetry.’
‘Adhyapakullo Amrutha Moorthulu,’ a book in Telugu penned by the late Pochiraju Seshagiri Rao was released on the occasion. ‘Guru Puja was performed by deputy tehasildar K. Gowri Naidu and a workshop on ‘Telugu Teaching’ was organised on the sidelines of the function.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Buddha Prasad said that he would consider the late Raghupathi Venkataratnam Naidu as the best teacher. Retired professor in Telugu from the Central University V. Ananda Murthy spoke about the book ‘Adhyapakullo Amrutha Moorthulu.’ He recalled that the late Seshagiri Rao was the disciple of the late Veturi Prabhakara Sastry. “Besides writing a detailed article about my father the late Prabhakara Sastry, the late Seshagiri Rao also penned detailed articles on the life and persona of seven other eminent personalities,” Mr. Ananda Murthy said. The book was dedicated to the late Gadi Benna Swamy, noted academician of yesteryears.
Mr. Ramabrahmam said that he was very happy to receive the prestigious award that was installed in memory of Dantu Bhaskara Rao. “Like his father Bhaskara Rao, Dantu Surya Rao too is evincing interest in art, culture and literature. He is also contributing his mite for the uplift of Andhra Sahitya Parishad, one of the prestigious organisations in South India,” he said.
Collector Neetu Prasad, MP Tota Narasimham, MLA V. Venkateswara Rao and other officials were present.