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Sanskrit Voice on NDTV

admin — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 21:14:00 +0000

This non-profit effort to revive Sanskrit to the modern age has now been acknowledged by NDTV. On Dec 7 ’07, NDTV profiled this website SanskritVoice.com along with the viewpoints of a few people in Sanskrit Vidyapeetha. Thanks to NDTV for featuring this website, and I’m honored to be of service to the country.

You can read the full article, or watch this video on NDTV. Here is a snippet on YouTube.

References:
Cover Story on NDTV
Video coverage on NDTV
YouTube video snippet

Sanskrit as a machine language

admin — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 23:22:00 +0000

Researchers believe Sanskrit and computers are a perfect fit. In 1985, Rick Briggs, a researcher for NASA, published a paper on the potential uses of Sanskrit as a machine language. Natural languages are basically too imprecise for use as machine languages, thus programmers have been forced to create artificial languages.

However, Briggs hailed Sanskrit as an exception. “Among the accomplishments of the [Sanskrit] grammarians can be reckoned a method for paraphrasing Sanskrit in a manner that is identical not only in essence but in form with current work in Artificial Intelligence. A natural language can serve as an artificial language also, and that much work in AI has been reinventing a wheel millennia old.”

Ref: Amritapuri

Help the Sanskrit daily

admin — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 23:19:00 +0000

The Sanskrit daily Sudharmais being brought out for the past 37 years. It is the only Sanskrit daily in the country.

This newspaper was started with an intention to propagate Sanskrit, the mother of all languages. The paper was launched in 1970 by Sanskrit scholar Girvanavani bhushana, vidyanidhi Kalale.Nadadur. Varadaraja Iyengar

MYSORE: It is believed to be the language of gods and once the lingua franca of the intellectual class in ancient India. A burning desire to keep the language alive coupled with a passion for journalism has made a senior journalist here try hard to keep a Sanskrit daily afloat.

From its press at Ramachandra Agrahara, Sudharma, the only Sanskrit daily in the country is catering to Sanskrit scholars, students and the like for the past 36 years without a break. Despatched mainly through post, the daily sells around 2,000 copies, and hardcore readers from across the country as well as a few abroad subscribe to it.

Sudharma editor K.V. Sampath Kumar told The Hindu that several readers had been patronising the paper since it was launched.

The annual subscription of Rs. 250. Though the revenue from the paper was negligible, Mr. Sampath Kumar said he was bringing out the paper only because of his passion for journalism and to propagate the language.

Kindly help to keep this paper alive by subscribing this paper.

His contact phone no is 0821 2442835

Address is,
Sri K.V.Sampath Kumar,
Chief Editor,
"Sudharma " Samskrita daily,
No 561, 2nd cross,
Ramachandra Agrahara,
Mysore 570 004.

Email: sudharma.sanskritdaily@gmail.com

If someone is interested in freelancing to create website for Sudharma, kindly shoot an email.

More info on this paper can be found from
The Hindu
Rand Rambler

By Jayashree | Ref: The Hindu

Rig Veda becomes ‘world inheritance’

admin — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 23:18:00 +0000

The medieval Indian manuscripts including the Rig Veda – restricted only to its practitioners till now – have now been selected for inscription in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, 2007.

While the Rig Veda has been selected from Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune, other Indian nominations include the IAS Tamil Medic Manuscript Collection (1997), Archives of the Dutch East India Company (2003), a Dutch nomination, and the Saiva Manuscripts in Pondicherry (2005).

The Vedas are the first literary documents in the history of humankind, and they transcend far beyond their identity as scriptures.

The Rig Veda, oldest of the four Vedas, is among the 38 items of documentary heritage of exceptional value which have been added to the prestigious register, bringing the total number of inscriptions since 1997 to 158.

It is a collection of 1028 hymns of exceptional literary qualities eulogizing the Vedic deities and is said to be the source of the Aryan culture.

Ref: IBN Live

Artificial Intelligence to decipher Vedas

admin — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 23:17:00 +0000

Modern technology is currently made use to decipher centuries-old sacred texts such as vedas that are written in Sanskrit. Deciphering Sanskrit text is not simple since a single phrase can have multiple connotations based on the context.

So, artificial intelligence is promptly applied to analyze the context of the text using complex semantics, before translating each word. Techies may be interested in the underlying regular expressions, and the related tools & techniques used for this purpose. Check out more details here.

Ref: Deciphering the Vedas

Sanskrit scholarship at Indore

admin — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:10:00 +0000

The State Government in Indore will distribute scholarship worth Rs 60 lakh among students of Indore division to promote their interest in Sanskrit.

Ref: Hindustan Times

Sanskrit Lexicon at Himalayan-Academy

admin — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 00:07:00 +0000

Himalayan Academy, publisher of Hinduism Today and HPI, is proud to announce their new on-line lexicon of Hindu and related philosophic terms in Sanskrit, Tamil and English. The dictionary is programmed with AJAX, and contains definitions of over 3,600 words. A valuable resource containing many thorough definitions of complex concepts.

Ref: Hinduism Today

Sanskrit in schools at A.P

admin — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 23:57:00 +0000

In Andhra Pradesh, Intermediate board draws flak for dissuading students of Sanskrit. The news about change in Sanskrit syllabus creates panic among students. Further, vacancies in Sanskrit lecturer posts are not being advertised.

The Andhra Pradesh Sanskrit Lecturers’ Association has found fault with the Board of Intermediate Education’s (BIE) alleged attempt to wean away students from Sanskrit by propagating that the examination pattern of the subject would be tough.

I feel this is clearly the foul play of politics…

Ref: The Hindu

Sanskrit as a mother tongue

admin — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 23:55:00 +0000

Today in Mangalore, there is one unique family where all the members are using Sanskrit as their mother tongue and they all interact with each other in this language only. Seems highly improbable but nevertheless, it is true. Check out the full story.

Ref: Mangalorean

Sanskrit Campaign in Andhra

admin — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 19:59:00 +0000

In Vijayawada (a city in Andhra Pradesh), a massive spoken Sanskrit popularization campaign was scheduled to start on Jan 2. It would churn out close to 20000 Sanskrit speakers in Vijayawada city in just 10 days.

This initiative of ‘Samskruta Bharathi’ is an all India organization for popularization of Sanskrit for daily use. It involves ‘Dasa Dina Sambhashana Sibirams’ – two-hour free training modules for 10 days in 108 places in the city. All the trainees would meet at Sri Ghantasala Venkateswara Rao Government College of Music and Dance on January 12 to demonstrate their newly acquired language skills.