Karat Releases Tamil Free Software People's Democracy (Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Vol. XXIX No. 47 November 20, 2005 Karat Releases Tamil Free Software PRAKASH Karat, general secretary of the CPI(M), formally released Tamil free software and open source tools developed by Panacea Dreamweavers Software Private Limited, a Chennai-based company. The packages were received by Dr M Anandakrishnan, former vice-chancellor of Anna University at a function in Chennai on November 9. Karat lauded the efforts of the company, stating that the packages and open source tools were a big stride forward in democratising IT, besides making the software available to small businessmen, self-help groups (SHGs) and NGOs. Presiding over the occasion, T K Rengarajan, CPI(M) central committee member, said that launch of Tamil free software and open source tools would go a long way in bridging the digital divide. Dr Anandakrishnan said that college students should be encouraged to develop software using the source code that has been made available to them by Panacea Dreamweavers. R Duraipandi, Director (Technology), Panacea Dreamweavers, spoke on the need to develop free software for regional language computing and called upon members of the developer community to take forward his company’s initiative in other languages as well. The guest of honour, Ms Vasanthi Devi, former vice-chancellor of Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, commended the team led by Duraipandi on their outstanding efforts. (INN)