MUMBAI, November 23: The benches of Shivaji Park will soon have an electronic equivalent. A `chat room' in Marathi on the Internet is slated to be launched on Tuesday. The brainchild of Thane-based Ninad Pradhan, the chat room can be navigated with the use of a new software Langscape Technology. The website that provides access to the software is www.indialanguages.com.

``Contents in other Indian languages like Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, Tamil and Gujarati are also available, and plans are afoot to open chat rooms in these languages as well,'' informed Pradhan. Pradhan had introduced the site last November. The rationalised `English phonetic keyboard' will also overcome the hurdle of working in Marathi, "because here the English letter `a' stands for `a' in Devanagari, `b' for `ba,' `c' for `ka' and so on,'' said Pradhan.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.