by Abdul Khalique
Published on: Aug 5, 2005
Topic:
Type: Opinions

I knew about TIG when I was planning to attend the ‘E-ducation without Borders 2005’ Conference. One day I visited the EWB official website and pointed my browser towards speaker’s profile page. There I read about Jennifer, the co-founder of TIG. I was really impressed by her and decided to attend her session in EWB’05. After a while, I opened the TIG website for the first time.

My first experience with TIG was very good because I never visited before any such site that is dedicated to connecting youth. It was a nice surprise for me when I found out that there is a dedicated page for countries on TIG.

TIG provided me with the motivation, information, inspiration, and above all helped me to be connected with other youths and make friends around the globe. Before joining TIG, I was never a very social person but now I seriously think how I can play a responsible role in my society and country in order to make this world peaceful and better for everyone.
My interest/motivation increased when I read some inspirational articles on Panorama. I have an intention to play a vital role for my country in order to fulfill the objectives of the MDGs.

TIG helped me in realizing my potential and abilities and guided me in many ways. I like all sections of TIG but particularly, Panorama, Global Gallery and Events are my favorite sections.

Over the years TIG has been a multilingual platform for connecting youth across the globe and gaining popularity day by day. Your people are doing a great job. Through this writing, I want to bring your attention towards another very important language which I think should be an important part of TIG’s multilingual platform.

The Urdu language ranks among the world’s top five languages and is a native language in Pakistan, Bangladesh (for the majority) and India. In Pakistan, more than 10 million people are using the Internet while in India more than 100 million people use the Internet. I don’t know the exact figures in Bangladesh but I am sure more than 5 million people come online from there.

If we do a comparison population wise, then we can see Urdu has a clear advantage over French, Spanish, German and many other languages. I am not against these languages, but I just want to emphasize the importance of the Urdu language.

There are already hundreds of Urdu websites present over the web, and BBC and Google are also offering their services in Urdu. Microsoft already has included Urdu support in the latest version of MS Office and Windows XP. I think it’s time to make Urdu an essential part of TIG. Of course, its not an easy job but at least you should include support for Urdu for Panorama magazine right now.

You can easily attract millions of people towards TIG by including Urdu support in your multilingual platform. I am also a native Urdu speaker and would like to contribute for Panorama in Urdu as well.

I can write so many points and factors to convince you towards an Urdu version but I am sure you have got my point. I have the intention to post this mail on TIGBlog and know what other members say about this suggestion. I think you should ask Pakistani/Indian members about my suggestion and invite them to do this for TIG.

Congrats on completing five successful years. TIG is gaining popularity day by day and I wish you best of luck for you success.





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