UN websites would be made multi lingual

May 02: The delegates attending the UN committee on Information, in New York, have recommended more multi lingual UN websites for the Internet surfers. It sounds as good news, especially to Asian and third world countries.

The delegates stressed on making the UN website more multi lingual by increasing the efforts to attain linguistic parity of the content of this website in the different official languages of the United Nations.

Ina his speech Simon Pidoux of Switzerland said that the UN Department for Public Information DPI, should work on linguistic parity of the website, which was supported by most of the delegates attending the meeting. “My country, which has four official languages, naturally favours multilingualism,� he pointed out.

Boris N, Malakhov of the Russian Federation pointed to statistics demonstrating a growing level of interest in the UN among Russian speakers. He suggested that webcasts of UN meetings be made available in Russian to meet this increasing demand. “At present, webcasts of the Security Council and the General Assembly, which are made in the English language, with the original language added later, do not cover the demand of the multilingual audience for immediate access to urgent information,� he said.

Lee Do-hoon of the Republic of Korea made different sort of inclusion by stating DPI should also “pay due attention to improving website accessibility by the disabled.�

Besides official UN languages the world body maintains websites for 29 non-official languages also. The only website which gets upgraded first of all is English as it is more effective in disseminating the information than any other language. Other official and non-official websites are then being upgraded and the time taken is different for different sites. This concern was shared by most of the delegates in today’s meeting.

Non-Aligned Movement also found its voice within the meeting. Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz of Cuba, who chairs the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), said: “Issues related to information and communications technology have an important place in the movement’s agenda�.

During the recent convention of world leaders, of which India is one of the founding members, in Cuba, NAM had set up a working group to work on information and communication technology within the member countries.