NEW DELHI: The Science and Technology Ministry has launched a new technology that promises to revolutionise the system of dissemination of information. It provides for the automatic translation of the information into 14 Indian languages and its automatic dissemination through SMS and voice messages.

The new system would come in handy particularly for sending out alerts in case of a tsunami or other natural disasters. "The India Meteorology Department has successfully tested the technology in Chennai and Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu and a proposal has been made to the Home Ministry to include it as part of the national disaster management system," Union Minister Science and Technology Kapil Sibal said launching the new technology at a press conference here on Friday.

A salient feature of the system is that it has a mechanism to deliver the alert both as an SMS and a voice message to each and every person in the disaster zone. It will also have a mechanism for disseminating information as a voice message through the wireless public address system for those who do not have mobile phones.

Unique feature

V.V. Ravindra, technical director, Geneva Software Technologies, which developed the system with financial support from the Science and Technology Ministry's Technology Development Board, said a unique feature of the system was that it had an intelligent local based multi-lingual messaging mechanism.

Thus, users would receive the alerts in their native language automatically.

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