Bureau of Indian Standards formed a standard known as ISCII (Indian Script Code for Information Interchange) for the use in all computer and communication media, which allows usage of 7 or 8 bit characters. In an 8 bit environment, the lower 128 characters are the same as defined in IS10315:1982 (ISO 646 IRV) 7 bit coded character set for information interchange also known as ASCII character set. The top 128 characters cater to all the Indian Scripts based on the ancient Brahmi script. In a 7-bit environment the control code SI can be used for invocation of the ISCII code set and control code SO can be used for reselection of the ASCII code set.
There are 15 officially recognized languages in India. Apart from Perso-Arabic scripts, all the other 10 scripts used for Indian languages have evolved from the ancient Brahmi script and have a common phonetic structure, making a common character set possible. An attribute mechanism has been provided for selection of different Indian script font and display attributes. An extension mechanism allows use of more characters along with the ISCII code. The ISCII Code table is a super set of all the characters required in the Brahmi based Indian scripts. For convenience, the alphabet of the official script Devnagari has been used in the standard. The standard number IS1319:1991 issued by Bureau of Indian Standards is the latest Indian Standard for Information Interchange, and is being widely used for development of IT products in Indian Languages.