Google's rich tribute to NTR

In honour of the legendary NT Rama Rao (NTR), Google has introduced six new Telugu fonts on its Google Fonts directory. The directory has a series of web fonts which are hosted for free for Application Programming Interfaces (API). Almost all the Telugu fonts are released by Silicon Andhra under the SIL Open Font License 1.1.

Google Fonts now has 17 Telugu fonts including 11 that have been hosted earlier. Google has hosted fonts named after NTR and former Education Minister Mandali Venkata Krishna Rao (Mandali). These are all free, open-source fonts optimised for the web.

The lack of good open-source fonts was the primary subject of discussion at the First Telugu Internet Conference held in Milpitus, California, in 2011.

Deputy Speaker Mandali Buddha Prasad, who attended the conference as a delegate, said that the first conference was conducted by Silicon Andhra in association with the Government of Andhra Pradesh. It was decided in the conference that there was a need to develop open-source fonts. He said more Telugu fonts would be put on Google Fonts in January before Sankranti.

“Google selected a font named after his father and put it on the directory,” he said.