Addressing the symposium for Indian Languages Technology Industry ‘Bhashantara’, in New Delhi, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT, Shri. Ajay Prakash Sawhney said that barrier-free communication is critical for the country and the goal is to have real-time translation capability in each of the Indic languages.

“We all are aware about India Stack, now we should come up with ‘India Language Stack’, which will help in overcoming the barriers of communication,” said Mr. Sawhney. The IT Secretary stressed upon the fact that with internet access becoming affordable, demand for regional content is increasing and will continue to grow.

The Secretary also launched e-Aksharayan in 7 Indian languages. E-Aksharayan is desktop software for converting scanned printed Indian Language documents into a fully editable text format in Unicode encoding. Mobile Testing Data in all 22 Indian languages useful in testing the display as well as inputting in mobile handsets IS standard 16333 (Part 3) was also released at the symposium. It defines the requirements for mobile handset for inputting of text in English, Hindi and at least one additional Indian official language along with facility of message readability in the phones for all 22 Indian official languages.

Speaking on the occasion, Ms. Swaran Lata, Program Head and Director, TDIL, MeitY, said that we have developed text to speech tech in 12 Indian languages and are working on all languages simultaneously to enhance the content.

Addressing the symposium Mr. Dilip Chenoy, Secretary General, FICCI, said, “Just like BPOs created a huge new sector, Indic language program under the Digital India can create millions of jobs.”

 “By 2021, Indic language users will grow from current 234 million to reach 536 million, and there is a need to localise Indic languages and find ways to incorporate it to the internet” said Mr. Chetan Krishnaswamy, Director, Public Policy, Google.

GK

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