Swecha - an operating system devoted to Telugu

Swecha LiveCD is a Telugu localised operating system that runs entirely
from a CDROM. It does not require any installation on the hard disk.
Common tasks such as writing and printing documents, browsing the web,
sending/receiving emails, chatting, editing graphics etc. can all be in
Telugu from the LiveCD. Optionally, one can install the operating
system onto the hard disk.

Highlights of the 'June 2006' release are:

* Speech assistance using screen reader and Telugu text-to-speech
* Installation to hard disk
* Documentaton
* All packages updated to their newer versions
* More Telugu GNOME translations
* Telugu localised Firefox
* Several bugs from earlier release were fixed

Telugu to get classical status

The Indian Government has approved the proposal to grant classical language status to Telugu and Kannada, meeting the four-year old demand of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
A committee of linguistic experts appointed by the Culture Ministry had examined the merits of the demands of the two states at a meeting last week and recommended that both languages fulfill the criteria laid down by the Government for recognition as classical languages. Telugu and Kannada will join Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit and Tamil which have already been given the classical-language status. However a public interest petition filed with Madras High Court is the last hurdle.
A classical language will get funding for instituting chairs at Universities, starting educational courses and setting up awards. The news came as a surprise birthday gift to Andhra Pradesh on 1st November, the AP Formation Day. Although, many were happy about it, some linguists, like Dr. P. Siva Rama Krishna expressed their anguish over this declaration. They wanted to see Telugu as a language with future rather than a `classical’ one.
Telugu is called the Italian of the East.

Agronomy terms to be translated

We need your help in translating the following terms:

Catch crops

Cultural control

Disc ploughs

Disking

Drain pipes

Dry mulches

Fertigation

Flood irrigation

Fertilizer dressings

Fertilizer drilling

Fertilizer formulations

Groundwater recharge

Humus

Husking

We seek your help in rendering translations of some Agrovoc terms.

We are particularly inquisitive to find if there is any Telugu equivalent for` Triplets'. We found one for `Quadraplets' and we would like to keep it a suspense for a while.

Following are some words for which we could not get suitable translations:

Servicing

Starfishes

Octopuses

Tanning

Four wheel drive

Ices

Railroad ties

Renewable energy

Shaker conveyers

Underweight

Upkeep

Videorecorders

You may give your translations in the Comments area.

Information sheets for translation

While translating AGROVOC into Telugu, we prepared lists of terms requiring translation. The majority of the rest of the terms being taxonomic names need to be only transliterated. These lists also contain the respective AGROVOC relations, definitions and pictures for the terms that are not very familiar. We thought that they would be helpful for future translations into other languages. Anyone interested in having them can contact me at sugunasrimaddala@yahoo.com.