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Bid for independent identity of Assamese script in Unicode

By Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Sept 15 � A broad-based committee will be constituted to study in detail the computational intricacies of the Assamese writing script in the Unicode standard. This was announced by Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi here today.

An official press release said the committee comprising linguists, IT specialists-language technologists, domain specialists, IT experts from universities, information technology and cultural affairs departments, would go into the computational intricacies of the Unicode script and the uniqueness of the Assamese script, which makes it very different and independent from the Bengali script or any other script.

The Chief Minister also directed the IT Department, the nodal department, the Cultural Affairs Department and AMTRON to organise a workshop involving IT experts, linguists, domain specialists and representatives from literary organisations to examine the issue and submit a proposal to the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India for an individual and separate Unicode for the Assamese script. As of now the Assamese script in Unicode has been shown as a modified version of the Bengali script.

Gogoi has also asked Chief Secretary Jitesh Khosla to formulate the future course of action in this connection to ensure a place for the Assamese script in the Unicode standard.

It may be mentioned here that it was at the directive of Chief Minister Gogoi that steps were initiated in 2012 during the tenure of Chief Secretary NK Das to include the Assamese script in the Unicode in its own right and identity. Several meetings were held with IT experts, linguists and heads of educational institutions, including IT Department of the Gauhati University in this regard, the press release said.

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