> transliteration involves a good understanding of english alphabets and query. Many people in india don't have that. That's true. I hadn't thought of it. OTOH

> transliteration involves a good understanding of english alphabets and query. Many people in india don't have that. That's true. I hadn't thought of it. OTOH transliteration tools are more for desktop/laptop users who use the keyboard that comes with their machine. On mobile (which is where most of these "next billion" users are going to be) it'll be a language-specific keyboard with no knowledge of English letters needed.