scope:

This report of the subgroup on information and communication technology (ICT) accessibility is part of prestandardization studies for Indian language resources. It was initiated with industry consultation of IEEE Standards activity to pool expertise across government, industry, and academia. Other subgroups cover script processing, text processing, speech processing, and evaluation methodologies.

After a brief introduction of the significance of accessibility that underlines the needs of people with disabilities (PwDs), the role and relevance of accessibility in ICT products and services is covered. Once the significance and context of accessibility in ICT is brought out, the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 is briefly covered, especially the provisions that relate to mandates in respect to the formulation of ICT standards, contents, goods, and services used in everyday life.

Section 2 details relevant global ICT accessibility standards, especially those of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as they have evolved and their plans for the future. Features of the standard that have a bearing on languages are explicitly brought out. Other prominent global standards-namely EN 301 549 of ETSI/CEN/CENELEC adopted in Europe and Section 508 of Rehabilitation Act adopted in the United States-are briefly outlined. The latter two were fully harmonized with the WCAG 2.0 or 2.1 standards or were largely extended for contexts beyond the web, based on the WCAG 2 ICT guideline document. Many of the requirements that are germane to aspects of languages in accessibility standards (including script, text, and speech) have been highlighted.

Section 3 reviews the status of accessibility requirements for ICT products and services currently in progress at the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). Explicit reference to the requirements of PwDs using Indian languages has been made in the BIS Indian standard IS 17802 [38], which was notified in December 2021 and May 2022, respectively by BIS in respect of Part 1 (Requirements) and Part 2 (Compliance criteria). They have been notified under RPWD Rules 2017 and Amendment Rules 2019, 2020, and 2023 [75]. It is fully harmonized with WCAG 2.1. Only Indian language script processing standards figure in the standard. In other areas like text processing and speech processing, progress in terms of maturity of solutions and standards need to be rapidly made for the next version of Indian accessibility standards to benefit from and support Indian language PwDs.

Section 6 and Section 7 reveal some sectoral responses to inclusion of the needs of PwDs in an increasingly digitalized society and ways of addressing them. India's rapid progress in the area of digitalization spotlights the need to accelerate technologies and standards for progress in natural language processing of Indian languages.

With the previous in mind, gap analysis and recommendations have been made. Areas that need linkage with the work of the other four subcommittees have been underlined. Bibliographic references for potential future work are provided.