As you already know, the Ministry of Human Resource Development as one of its Eleventh Plan initiatives has set up the Linguistic Data Consortium for Indian Languages (LDC-IL) under the aegis of the Central Institute of Indian Languages.  In the proposed  activities of the LDC-IL, the focus is on

• Become a repository of linguistic resources in all Indian languages in the form of text, speech and lexical corpora.

• Facilitate creation of such databases by different organizations which could contribute and enrich the main LDC-IL repository.

• Set appropriate standards for data collection and storage of corpora for different research and development activities.

• Support language technology development and sharing of tools for language-related data collection and management.

• Facilitate training and manpower development in these areas through workshops, seminars etc., in technical as well as process related issues.

• Create and maintain the LDC-IL web-based services that would be the primary gateway for accessing its resources.

• Design or provide help in creation of appropriate language technology based on the linguistic data for mass use, and

• Provide the necessary linkages between academic institutions, individual researchers and the masses.

In this connection I seek the kind cooperation of the NLP Community in India and abroad.  As a first step, since the LDC-IL has to become a repository of Linguistic Resources in all Indian languages, I request the teams working with you to kindly provide the language resources/tools created to the repository of the LDC-IL and enrich the same.  Due acknowledgement will be given to the creators of the languages resources when the resources are licensed to third party.  Also, the Working Group on Licensing is debating various issues concerning licensing of the language resources of the LDC-IL.  While finalizing the licensing policy, the Licensing Committee will take care of the possible revenue sharing that is generated due to licensing of the resources acquired by the LDC-IL.

At the first instance I request you to kindly provide a list of language resources that you would like to provide to the repository of the LDC-IL and once we get full details from all the NLP groups, we shall be asking the creators of the language resources to kindly lend them to the LDC-IL.   

Chairperson 

  LDC-IL