There is an unfolding technological tragedy in the Subcontinent which has its source in our inability to use new information technology because of the language barrier. This retards social and economic growth drastically, but there seems little concern in each of the South Asian countries and provinces.

The English-speaking upper crust of South Asia are mostly computer-literate, and this gives us the false sense that the machines are in use all over, in business, publishing, administration, education, household use, and so on. In fact, only a tiny fraction of computer aided number crunching and data retrieval is a reality in south Asia. You have to know English to be able to sit before a computer, which immediately takes computers out of the reach of more than 95 percent of South Asians.

Until Computer can be brought down from the rarefied elevations of English-speaking South Asia and into the ‘vernacular’ bylanes, they will continue to remain high-tech toys. The price of hardware is falling and costs are no longer the barrier they once were. The real obstacle is language. Many South Asians who are able to afford and use computers can not do so because they do not understand English. As far as Bengali, Hindi, Nepali or Urdu are concerned, they may as well not exist in the world of informatics.

Yes, it's possible to type in these South Asian languages and, up to an extent, do layout and design and bring out newspapers and books through desktop publishing. But this is just a fraction of what the computer is capable of. Computer applications beyond typing and layout are out of reach of most South Asians who do not have English. This is unfair.

To involve the population at large in the use of information technology, information technology must work in the language of the ordinary users of that technology. In the immediate case, it is much easier to move the technology to work in the language of local population than for the population to acquire the appropriate level of competence in English.

Of south Asia’s 1.3 billion citizens, 96 percent are currently excluded from using the computer, the Internet, and the world Wide Web (www). This is due to the near-total absence of software in the languages that the majority of them speak. Restated in the jargon of the computer scientist, there has been virtually no "software localisation" to any of the major languages of the Subcontinent.

Localisation, after all, is that highly technical process by which computer programmes written in one language by members of one culture are translated into another language for use by members of another culture.

Currently, the major packaged software firms, almost all of which are located in the Unites States, prepare for localisation by setting apart the irreducible source code of major programming languages, operating systems and applications from the linguistically and culturally specific elements which need to be changed for special local markets.

This process is called the "internationalisation" of the programme code. The list of elements that need to be set apart so as to be ‘localised’ is long: not just obvious text translations, numbers, box sizes, names, dates, and icons.

The complex technical features of software localisation are well understood and often written about by specialists. But two other aspects of localisation, both of which have significant cultural and political implications for the Subcontinent, are sometimes mentioned but seldom studied: first, whether or not localised versions of major programmes exist at all; and second, the embedded cultural content of even technically well-localised programmes.

At present, about 80 percent of the world market in packaged software is produced by American firms, and the percentage grows each year. With few exceptions, localisation, therefore, means whether or not software written originally for an English-speaking audience by American programmers is or can be adapted to other languages and cultures. What factors determine whether these English-language programming language, operating systems, and applications are made available to non-English speakers - that is, are localised. The most common explanation is economic. A software company’s decision to localise software - a costly undertaking - most obviously is a response to its perception of the potential market demand. Where a large population uses computers, and - an important qualification where piracy rates are low enough that software producers can sell their products rather than have them stolen, companies are more likely to invest in localisation. For this reason, we have French, Spanish, German, Finnish and Swedish versions of major programmes by internationally software firms like IBM, Microsoft, Digital, Oracle, SAP etc., but not Bengali, Hindi, Nepali or Urdu versions. In a region where the annual income of the average individual is less than half the cost of a well-equipped computer, where almost two third of the population is illiterate, where almost a third of the population lives at or below the official level of subsistence, and where the cost of an Internet connection exceed the cost of food for a month, computers - and therefore localisation to native languages - are today beyond the means of any but a minority.