[WMASTERS] ISCII-97 report

["Dr. K. Kalyanasundaram" <kalyan@igcsun3.epfl.ch>]

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Dear Govindasamy:

on 6th Oct 97 you wrote:
> ..The Draft version of the proposed  version of
>ISCII -1997, which is prepared by the Deparment of Electronics -
>committee, will take care of all the things that we are discussing- with
>slight modification.
<snipped>
>how many of us involved in this discussion has given thought for
>the proposed ISCII-97,  and the implication it will bring to UNCODE? The
>present Unicode is implemented with the recommendation of DoE and BIS
>(Bureau of Indian Standards) based on ISCII 91 version. If this Draft
>version of ISCII-97 is accepted as a standard, the next version of
>UNICODE, will have the new code.

As a reponse to Mani you write on 7th Oct 97:
>> Is the draft standard available for comments at any web site?  The only
>> reference to ISCII-97 that I could find on the net was the paper Mr.
>> Anbarasan presented at the Singapore conference.
>
>Sorry Mani, the draft report of 1997 is not avilable for public. May be
>you can try at this site http://www.ernet.in

The ernet site is a hopeless one with near zero probabality of access.
If ISCII-97 report stays classified as to-day, it will not be there
either.
It appears rather strange that, a government body drafts a standard
for consideration by Unicode yet it does not want to make that proposal
available to the general public to read and digest while it is still
at the consideration level!!! Is this the way Unicode and the associated 
governmental bodies go about defining standards?
As Dr. Srinivasan pointed out, we may all will be wasting our time
discussing ISCII or UNICODE here in extra-mural debates.

Can you or Anbu explain to us how the ISC standards are defined?
Are the drafts ever put to the general public for response any time
before they are finalised and declared as standards? There should be
past history on ISCII-91 and ISCII-88.

Another remote point:
If none of the lay public can have access to ISCII-97 documentation,
how do you expect us to "give thoughts to proposed ISCII-97"
Are we not in a Catch-22 situation?
The only way out is for people who have access to these documentation 
comment or guide us through. We do not know what constraints 
these previledged individuals have to discuss the details in public.

Kalyan


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