Gujarati e-mail service launched

Addressing a press conference here, Marketing Manager, Suvi Information Systems Parvinder Singh Gujral said, 8220;E-patra lets its user compose and send mail in Gujarati, and more importantly, the user doesn8217;t need to know use of the Gujarati keyboard,8221; explaining that the service, which facilitates on-line script conversion from Roman English to Gujarati, was based on the concept of transliteration.

Suvi already has to its credit Hindi and Marathi e-mail services which have become popular among users, Singh said, adding, 8220;We are also developing e-mail services for other languages8221;.

Besides e-mail services, Suvi plans to extend other facilities like on-line chat, composite mail having Gujarati and English or Hindi,English, Marathi and English content in the same mail. Singh said the facility was aimed at helping native language users switch to e-patra from e-mail requiring English language.

He said the sole idea behind introducing language e-mail services was to make them accessible to 95 per cent population which uses native languages. 8220;The concept of e-mail will not catch on until regional languages are available on Internet,8221; Singh said.

According to Singh, when television channels like Star TV and MTV had started catering to the native language speaking population, Internet could not afford to remain confined to five per cent of the English-speaking population.

Suvi product manager Sunil Gandhi said his company was planning to set up service centres so that the exchange of data could be carried out among different language e-mail facilities.