Computers may soon have language fonts

The government today said it was planning to make it mandatory for original equipment manufacturers (oem) to load fonts of major Indian languages in computers to facilitate language computing.

"After we (government) complete the initiative to distribute fonts in mother tongues freely, we will make it mandatory for oems (ibm, hcl etc.) to load these fonts," Communication and it minister Dayanidhi Maran told reporters on the sidelies of Elitex 2005.

He said as less than five per cent of the country's population spoke English it was necessary to have fonts of major Indian languages freely available in computers. "The ministry has taken upon itself to distribute the fonts freely," he said.