ElevenLabs Voice AI Session & NCRB/NPMFireside Chat

20 Feb 2026 12:00h - 13:00h

Session at a glance

Summary

This discussion focused on Bhashini, India’s National Language Translation Mission, and its efforts to break down language barriers in the country’s digital ecosystem. Swati Sharma and Shailendra Pal Singh presented how Bhashini addresses the critical issue that 800 million Indians are not fluent in English, yet 95% of digital content is available only in English. They highlighted a compelling example of a farmer who had to travel 40 kilometers just to find someone to help fill out an English form for a government scheme.

The main product discussed was the Bhashini Translation Plugin, a lightweight code solution that can make any website multilingual in minutes without requiring backend overhauls or complete redesigns. The plugin supports all 22 Indian scheduled languages and has already been integrated into over 400 websites, generating 24 million inferences and creating 1.5 million glossaries. During the presentation, they demonstrated how simple copy-and-paste integration works, showing how a basic website can instantly become accessible in multiple Indian languages.

The speakers detailed various advanced features and use cases, including direct translation between Indian languages without using English as an intermediary, selective translation capabilities, regional language prioritization, and voice-activated language selection. They also addressed technical challenges like handling dynamic content, mixed languages, and portal forms without page reloads. A significant portion of the discussion centered on glossaries – customized translation dictionaries that ensure contextually appropriate translations for specific domains, organizations, or use cases. The presenters emphasized that users often need contextual understanding rather than literal accuracy, making domain-specific glossaries crucial for effective communication. The initiative represents a comprehensive approach to digital inclusion, positioning language as infrastructure rather than just a feature.

Keypoints

Major Discussion Points:

– Language Accessibility Crisis in India: The fundamental problem that 800+ million people are not fluent in English, yet 95% of digital content is available only in English, creating a significant barrier to digital inclusion for India’s 1.4 billion diverse population.

– Bhashini Translation Plugin Solution: A lightweight, one-line code solution that can instantly make any website multilingual across 22 Indian scheduled languages without requiring backend overhauls, demonstrated through live coding examples.

– Advanced Plugin Features and Use Cases: Comprehensive capabilities including selective translation (skipping certain elements), language prioritization, mixed language handling, dynamic content management, voice-activated language selection, and URL redirection for different language domains.

– Glossary System for Contextual Translation: A sophisticated approach to improve translation accuracy by creating domain-specific dictionaries that handle post-translation corrections and transliterations, ensuring culturally appropriate and contextually correct translations rather than just literal accuracy.

– Real-world Impact and Implementation Challenges: Discussion of practical deployment across 400+ websites generating 24+ million inferences, with specific examples of translation errors and solutions, emphasizing the importance of understanding context over pure linguistic accuracy.

Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to present Bhashini’s National Language Translation Mission as a comprehensive solution for digital language inclusion in India, demonstrating how their translation plugin and glossary system can bridge the language divide and enable last-mile digital access for non-English speakers.

Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a consistently professional and educational tone throughout, with presenters demonstrating expertise while remaining accessible to the audience. The tone was solution-oriented and optimistic, focusing on practical demonstrations and real-world applications. The speakers showed patience in explaining technical concepts and remained engaging during the Q&A session, maintaining enthusiasm for their mission of digital language inclusion.

Speakers

– Swati Sharma: Role/title not explicitly mentioned, but appears to be a key presenter/expert on Bhashini translation solutions and language accessibility initiatives. Expertise in language technology, digital inclusion, and multilingual AI solutions.

– Shailendra Pal Singh: Role/title not explicitly mentioned, but appears to be a co-presenter/expert on Bhashini translation plugin technology. Expertise in technical implementation and integration of translation solutions.

– Audience: Multiple audience members who asked questions during the Q&A session. Roles/titles not mentioned. Areas of interest include commercial applications of translation technology, regional language customization, and domain-specific glossary management.

Additional speakers:

None identified beyond those in the speakers names list.

Full session report

This comprehensive discussion presented Bhashini, India’s National Language Translation Mission, as a transformative solution to one of the country’s most pressing digital challenges: the profound language divide that excludes hundreds of millions of citizens from accessing digital services and information. The presentation, delivered by Swati Sharma and Shailendra Pal Singh, provided both a philosophical framework and practical demonstration of how technology can serve as a bridge for digital inclusion.

The Scale and Nature of India’s Digital Language Crisis

The speakers opened with a powerful framing of the challenge facing India’s digital ecosystem. Sharma emphasised that India represents “a country of 1.4 billion voices” where people “think differently, speak differently, and dream differently,” yet the digital landscape fails to reflect this diversity. The statistics presented were stark: over 800 million Indians are not fluent in English, whilst 95% of digital content remains available only in English. This creates what the speakers termed a “language divide” that has profound real-world consequences.

The human impact of this divide was illustrated through a compelling anecdote about a farmer who needed to travel 40 kilometres simply to find someone capable of helping him complete an English-language form for the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme. This example transformed abstract statistics into a tangible demonstration of how language barriers create physical hardship, economic inefficiency, and systemic exclusion from government services that citizens are entitled to access.

The speakers positioned this not merely as a translation problem, but as a fundamental issue of digital equity. Their approach reframes multilingual support from an optional feature to essential infrastructure, arguing that “language as infrastructure” should form the foundation for digital inclusion rather than being treated as an afterthought.

The Bhashini Translation Plugin: Technical Innovation for Social Impact

The core solution presented was the Bhashini Translation Plugin, which represents a sophisticated yet accessible approach to website multilingualism. The plugin leverages 350 plus models from their platform and has already been deployed across more than 400 websites, generating approximately 24 million plus translation inferences and creating 1.5 million customised glossaries.

The technical elegance of the solution lies in its simplicity of implementation. Both speakers demonstrated how a single line of lightweight code can transform any website into a multilingual platform supporting all 22 Indian scheduled languages. This approach eliminates the traditional barriers to multilingual website development—no backend overhauls, no complete redesigns, and no requirement for extensive technical expertise. The demonstration showed how someone with basic copy-and-paste skills could implement the solution within minutes.

During the presentation, the speakers provided a live demonstration using the Bhashini website itself, showing how the plugin seamlessly translated content into different Indian languages. Singh confirmed that once integrated, the plugin automatically applies across all pages of a website, maintaining language selection as users navigate through different sections. The solution is DBM (Digital Brand Identity Management) compliant, which Sharma explained relates to the “digital brand identity management compliance book” and includes accessibility features for visually impaired users, ensuring compatibility across different website technologies whilst meeting government accessibility standards.

Advanced Features and Real-World Applications

The discussion revealed the plugin’s sophisticated capabilities developed in response to diverse real-world requirements. Unlike traditional translation systems that rely on English as an intermediary language, the Bhashini plugin enables direct translation between any Indian languages, preserving linguistic authenticity and reducing translation errors.

The system includes intelligent selective translation capabilities through a “skip translation class” that allows website administrators to exclude specific elements. The speakers provided a specific example from the Finance Department Maharashtra, where content already in the source language could be automatically skipped to preserve meaning and avoid unnecessary translation.

Regional customisation features address the practical needs of India’s diverse linguistic landscape. The plugin allows administrators to prioritise regional languages in the selection dropdown, ensuring that local languages appear prominently rather than being buried in alphabetical listings.

Perhaps most innovatively, the plugin incorporates voice-activated language selection, specifically demonstrated through its implementation on the Rail Madad website. Users can simply click the mic button, speak their preferred language, and the entire website transforms accordingly. This feature is particularly valuable for users who may have difficulty navigating dropdown menus or reading language names in scripts they don’t recognise.

The system also handles complex technical challenges such as mixed-language content, where it intelligently recognises when source content differs from the expected language and automatically skips translation to preserve meaning. For dynamic content that changes rapidly, the plugin employs batch processing to manage API calls efficiently and maintain responsive performance.

The Glossary System: Context Over Accuracy

A significant portion of the discussion focused on the glossary system, which represents a sophisticated approach to translation quality that prioritises user comprehension over literal accuracy. The speakers revealed a crucial insight: users seeking translated content are primarily interested in understanding the intent and context of information rather than achieving perfect linguistic precision.

The glossary system addresses two primary use cases. Post-translation corrections handle situations where technically accurate translations may be contextually inappropriate—such as translating a “home” navigation tab as “ghar” (house) rather than “Mukhya Prasht” (main page). Transliteration preserves proper names and coined terminology, ensuring that location names like “Vakil Saab Bridge” retain their identity rather than being literally translated to “Lawyer Bridge.”

The speakers provided numerous examples of glossary challenges and solutions, demonstrating the system’s precision requirements. Differences in punctuation, singular versus plural forms, or spacing can cause recognition failures, highlighting the technical complexity underlying seemingly simple customisation. They showed how abbreviations can create significant contextual problems—”BN” meaning “billion” in general usage but “battalion” in Border Security Force contexts—requiring domain-specific glossaries to ensure accurate communication.

The glossary system is deliberately customised for each client rather than attempting a one-size-fits-all approach. The speakers noted that they have created substantial glossaries with various government departments, including 15 lakh words for the Ministry of Panchayati Raj and 16 lakh words for the Survey of India.

Implementation Challenges and Solutions

The presentation addressed various technical and practical challenges encountered during real-world deployments. For websites with forms or portals requiring user input, the original plugin caused page reloads that erased user-entered data when languages were changed. The team developed a no-reload version that maintains form data whilst switching languages, demonstrating their responsiveness to user experience needs.

Dynamic content presented particular challenges for websites like State Bank of India and MyBharat Hotel, where rapidly changing information created excessive API calls and delayed response times. The solution involved intelligent batch processing that groups translation requests to optimise performance whilst maintaining real-time user experience.

The system also handles sophisticated use cases such as URL redirection, where language selection not only translates content but redirects users to language-specific domains, supporting organisations that maintain separate domain structures for different languages.

Future Development and Commercial Availability

The speakers outlined an ambitious roadmap for expanding the plugin’s capabilities. Language support is being extended to 36 Indian languages, with demonstrations available at their pavilion, and plans for incorporating international languages to serve India’s diverse expatriate and international user communities.

Technical enhancements include automated glossary upload through an onboarding portal, streamlining the currently manual process of glossary submission and processing. The integration of additional accessibility features such as text-to-speech and enhanced screen reader compatibility will further expand the plugin’s utility.

The plugin is available for both government and private sector implementation through various collaboration agreements. The speakers indicated that different partnership structures exist for commercial entities, with detailed information available through their stakeholder engagement team.

Conclusion and Vision

The presentation concluded with a call to action that connected immediate practical benefits with longer-term cultural goals. The speakers emphasised that “language is not just words, it is identity,” positioning their technical solution within a broader vision of empowering India’s linguistic heritage through technological advancement.

The Bhashini Translation Plugin represents more than a technical solution; it embodies an approach to technology development that prioritises inclusion and accessibility. By making multilingual website development as simple as copying and pasting a single line of code, the initiative removes traditional barriers to digital inclusion whilst providing sophisticated customisation capabilities for complex use cases.

The success of this initiative, as demonstrated through widespread adoption across more than 400 websites and 24 million plus translation inferences, suggests a model for how technology can serve diverse populations without requiring them to abandon their linguistic preferences. As the speakers concluded, their work represents “technology for dignity,” offering a framework for ensuring that technological advancement enhances rather than diminishes India’s remarkable linguistic diversity.

The discussion ultimately presented a compelling case that digital inclusion requires technology designed to accommodate human diversity. The Bhashini Translation Plugin stands as a practical demonstration of how this philosophy can be implemented at scale, offering hope for a more inclusive digital future that truly serves all of India’s 1.4 billion voices.

Session transcript

Swati Sharma

accessibility, language accessibility and language inclusivity. We are a country of 1 .4 billion people. More importantly, a country of 1 .4 billion voices. We all think differently, we all speak differently, and we all dream differently. But whenever we go online, everything is available only in one language. Majorly English.

Shailendra Pal Singh

To break the language barrier that exists in our country. And we have different solutions and different integrations that we have. One of them is Pashni translation plugin, which is already sitting on top of more than 500 websites, if I’m not wrong, the exact number. And we are enabling people, we are enabling citizens of India who are essentially not being able to understand in English and Hindi because most of the digital content that you see, primarily the website, maximum you’ll see is a website which is sitting in a state. The default language would be there or English primarily. But then what about rest of the languages? Imagine a scenario that I’m someone from north and I’m living there in Maharashtra.

Mostly you will see the content in Marathi or English. But then what about having the same content? I don’t know English. But I really want to understand what is there. And I want to convert it, the different policies at the state level, different guidelines, different content, maybe creative content, etc. You need to know in my language. So, Bhajani Translation Plugin is one of the engineered solution using all the models that you might already be aware of. 350 plus models from our platform. We have this solution as Peksa Swati.

Swati Sharma

So, as Shailendra Pal mentioned, last year a farmer wanted to apply for the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi. It’s basically a very simple form that the farmer has to fill. But the form was in English. The farmer literally had to travel 40 kilometers only to find somebody who can actually help him out filling the form. This is the language divide. This is the barrier that we are trying to avoid. Eliminate. 800 plus million people. are not fluent in English. And 95 % of the content which is available, it is in English. This is where Bhashni comes into picture. The National Language Translation Mission of India. We are trying to transcend the language barrier. We are creating a unified multilingual layer for India’s digital ecosystem.

We are not just providing language as a feature. We are providing language as an infrastructure. We are encouraging language as the foundation for digital inclusion. Next slide, please. So, like sir introduced, the Bhashni Translation Plugin. It’s a powerful product through which you can have any website being translated into multiple languages, being accessible to all the people in the last mile. And this happens in matter of minutes. Not days. Or months. Or just minutes. This is the power of the product that we are talking about. And you don’t have to rebuild the entire website. You don’t have to redesign it. There is no back -end overhaul. Just one liner, very lightweight, simple code that you can copy and paste onto the website and you will have your website speaking multiple Indian languages.

This is how accessibility is made effortless, inclusion is made scalable, and the last mile reach is made real. So I just want anybody to see. Anybody who can copy and paste. Like we don’t need a developer or a person who knows JavaScript or the entire back -end. just somebody knows copy and paste and we’ll see how with the help of that you can have the entire website multilingual. So anybody who would like to do that? Yes, sir, please.

Shailendra Pal Singh

Maybe, you want to open a website first and show what exactly VashuCast is.

Swati Sharma

So this is the Vashni’s website and here is the plugin that has been integrated on the website. This plugin will help us have the entire website available in all 22 Indian languages. All right, so while we just give a quick glimpse of what Bhajani translation plugin is, it is basically a very lightweight utility, though. you find it very simple but the content that we have on this website primarily is in English and there are other challenges that you that we would like to discuss later on as how this translation plugin brings in though it looks very easy just you clicked on a button and then you do a translation all together but then we’ll discuss more about what are the different challenges we come across not from the fact the engineering side of it but on the language side of it how we cater and have this challenge taken care so this is just a plugin we just wanted to tell you this is how it works but you know if you go back to English then and then you know we will just talk about what you wanted to we’ll continue with that so I just wanted to have a quick demo of how you can integrate this plug -in onto the website so I think some if yes you can come we’ll just see how with the help of just the knowledge of copy and paste we can have the entire code implemented and you’ll have the entire website translated into multiple different languages.

For the purpose of this demo we had created this dummy website and the code for this website is here. So this is the code that none of us would most of us would not understand. And I would like to request sir to just copy and paste the plug -in code that we have. So we want to tell that this website content is only in English and you want to add multi -lingual flavor to it using Bhashini. You can integrate the solution that we have on the top of

Shailendra Pal Singh

That’s what you’ve meant.

Swati Sharma

Yes. So if you can sir just copy and paste this code. The code which is written here. Yes.

Shailendra Pal Singh

Anywhere here.

Swati Sharma

If you can just add a hyphen between translation and plug -in.

Shailendra Pal Singh

Yes.

Swati Sharma

Can you go back to the website? Refresh it. So you can see that the plug -in is added. And we can now have this website available in all 22 Indian Schedule languages. So that’s the power of this code. We’ve taken care of everything that is happening at the back -end. and you just have to copy and paste the code that we’ve created for you. It’s as simple as that.

Shailendra Pal Singh

So Swati, so let’s say I’ve embedded this particular thing on this particular website. Now it is available. There is the icon. What about if I go to next pages, right? Will the system understand that there’s a link in the I chose and I go to any page? It will reflect Hindi or I have to select every time I go to any page as my language, which I chosen as Hindi.

Swati Sharma

So you don’t have to apply this code on every page. The pages of the website will automatically understand that the multilingual feature has to be embedded on all the pages. So if you move on to any other page of the website. So this was just a dummy website that we had created. Let me. Go to Bajni translation plugin. in Bhajani’s website. So if you go to any of the pages, the plugin will remain there. And you will have the multilingual feature added on all the pages of the website, not just the home page. So let’s go back to the slides now. So like we just demonstrated, the code that we have for the plugin that we are talking about is a one -liner, very lightweight, simple integrated, simply integrated code, which you can use to have your website available in all 22 Indian Schedule languages.

It is DBM compliant and framework agnostic. So if you have your website, in different, made in different languages, it’s irrespective of that, the code will be applied to your website and you can use the same code.

Shailendra Pal Singh

So Swati, can you just give some light on what is DBM compliant as how the website is DBM compliant? If I, let’s say I have a government website and I want to include the Bhasini translation plugin onto it, what is this DBM compliant that you talked about?

Swati Sharma

So these are the compliances mentioned in the digital brand identity management compliance book that is available. So for everybody to have an accessible website, the DBM compliance have to be followed. And we have the DBM compliant code with us wherein all the accessibility features like, you know, that happens in the backend, you know, for, any person who is a visually special person who wants to access the website. is able to do that with the help of the technical integrities that we’ve incorporated into the plug -in code that we have. So this is a glimpse of the impact that we’ve already created. We have approximately more than 400 plus websites that are already integrated with Pashni translation plug -in.

From those websites, we get approximately 24 million plus inferences. And we’ve created 1 .5 million plus glossaries. So glossary is something that I will take at a later section during the session only. But just for a short description, glossary enhances the translation in such a manner that the end citizen who is actually consuming the content from the website is able to understand the content. And also, these are the 22 Indian scheduled languages in which the plug -in is available. available. Next slide, please. So while we were creating the plugin, we had to create something that, you know, one size fits all product and which is something very difficult to create because everybody has different requirements and to cater to all those requirements, we had to make one product that can simply be accessed by everybody.

So these are some of the use cases that I will be discussing that our plugin has the capability to resolve to. The first one is that generally what happens in, you know, a product like this, you translate, you know, from English to the target language. But here in our plugin, what we’ve done is that even if your website is, let’s say, created in a language other than English, let’s say Marathi. That can also be translated to the targeted language directly. So you don’t have to first translate the website to English and then move on to the targeted language. You can have the source and target language as per your requirement. So that’s how we’ve not, you know, you don’t have to get into the bridge of creating English as an intermediary to move from one language to another.

Next slide, please. Okay, so when I talk about a website, there are different sections of the website. And not all these sections would you want to translate. For example, the calendar, if there’s a calendar, you would not want it to be translated into, you know, the target language. Including email IDs and, you know, there are certain sections that a lot of people didn’t want to be translated. So there is one class that you can embed that is the skip translation class. Embedding that will help you. Navigate to the, navigate the sections that you don’t want to be translated. So, that’s also one feature that we have with our plugin. Next slide, please. Okay, so, you know, you saw the plugin, right?

There were languages listed in a certain manner in the plugin. So, what happens is at, you know, many regional places, we want the plugin to have the regional languages on top. So, for example, after English, people don’t want to go alphabetically like Assamese, Bengali. They would want their regional language. In this case, they wanted Hindi to come in the, you know, to change the order of the languages that are appearing. And that is also possible. So, if you want your regional language to come on top, you can have that with our plugin. So, you know, majorly what we say is that we would want to… We want to display our website in a certain language.

So for example, if you created the website in let’s say English, but you would want all the users to have the language to be displayed as Hindi first. And probably then they can navigate to their own targeted language. So even if your website, the source language of your website is English, you can, there is a possibility of adding the parameter which can have the source language as Hindi or Marathi or Punjabi as the user requires for all your websites. Next slide please. Okay, so what if your… Your website has the, you know, has been created in two languages. So for example, you’ve created your website in English and Marathi also. So that was the use case that we had with finance department Maharashtra.

So they did not want translation to happen in the Marathi language and the English language, though their source language of, you know, so basically the source language of the website was English and Marathi. So if you want to skip translation for different languages also, you can do that. So in this case, what happens is that the user selects a language. If the language of the source is selected, let’s say, you know, English or Marathi, it will go redirected to the English or the Marathi page of the website. And if the user has selected any other language, it will move on to the normal process of translating it into the target language. Next slide, please. So, you know, sometimes we have portals also.

Yes. So, you know, because we would want to have websites available in all 22 Indian scheduled languages so that we try and reach out to the maximum people. But if that is your use case wherein you would want just three or four languages to be displayed for every user to be seen, you can have that also. So the drop -down will only display four languages in that case? Yes. But it’s always encouraged to have all the languages so that everybody, you know, who’s accessing your website can have the website available. Thank you, then. So, talking about this use case, what happens is that in most of the cases, we also have portals. And in portals, we have forms or, you know, we basically ask input from the user who is using the portal.

So if they apply Bhajani translation plugin and they, you know, move on from one language to another, it will reload the entire page. If it reloads the entire page, whatever the user has filled in, like their details, their name, their email IDs, all that information was lost. So what we did to capture this was that now plugin can also have the portals without the reload picture. So if you don’t want the plugin to reload every time a user selects a language from the drop -down, you can have that. Next slide, please. So this was a very interesting use case. You know, you can see this is how the website was displayed. So the source language of the website is English.

But like we can see, after every English, below every English word. there is a different language. So Haryana written in English, then Haryana written in Hindi. Puducherry written in English and some other language. So here this was use case of handling mixed languages. So what we did here was that whenever the plugin sees that the source language of the plugin is different from what characters it is getting, like here in Haryana, it is getting Hindi characters also, it will skip this translation automatically. So you would not have to skip it at your end. We’ve done it and we’ve created it, we’ve designed the plugin in such a manner that if the source language of the website is, you know, if the contents going for the translation are different from the source language of the website, it will automatically skip the translation.

Next slide, please. So… With certain use cases, what happened was… that there was a lot of dynamic content on the website. So, static content can easily be translated. Like, it is also difficult, but it’s not as difficult as handling the dynamic content. But for certain, like for State Bank of India and for MyBharat Hotel, the dynamic content was changing so rapidly that it was making too many API calls and the response time was getting delayed. So, what we did there was that we intelligently had the code running in such a manner that the dynamic content was, the translation of dynamic content was handled in batches. And that’s how the, you know, API calls, the increased API calls reduced and the response time was stabilized.

Next slide, please. Okay, so now… We all can, you know, navigate to the website. select the target language on the website and have the website available in the target language. But what if somebody cannot navigate, cannot select a language from the drop -down? We also, with Rail Madad, you know, if you go to the Rail Madad’s website, there is a mic button. So you just say out your language. So for example, if you say out Gujarati, the entire website will turn into Gujarati. So that’s the capability of it. Next slide, please. Okay, so this is a very recent use case that we’ve handled. So like you can see here, there is the MSD website. And there is also another domain name, which is Hindi, which is in Hindi.

So what the client wanted was that, you know, once the user selects Hindi as the drop -down, the translation happens, but it also redirects to the… Hindi domain of the website. So that mapping of which language to which domain, that is also something that we have done at our end and you can have URL redirection also. Next slide please. Okay, so what happens, so let me just ask, I hope everybody here understands Hindi, right? What is the translation of home in Hindi? Ghar, Ghray, that’s right, right? But the home tab on the website, if it is getting translated to Ghar, it’s not the correct translation. It should be translated to Mukhya Prash. So these kind of use cases wherein the translation which is being given by the model is correct but you would want a specific different translation for a specific word or phrases that can also be handled through glossary.

So, the way that we have done this is that we have website. So, we have a lot of information in the information in the Just now, after we complete this, next slide please. So, this is the future roadmap for plugin that we have. We have expanded it to 36 languages, 36 more Indian languages. So, you can go to Vashni Pavilion which is right here in this hall only. We have a demo of the plugin which is available in 36 languages. We are also incorporating the 35 international languages. We have done that for certain use cases which are displayed here today at Bhaat Mandapam. Secondly, we will be talking about glossary but the glossary in, you know, traditionally the glossaries were sent to us through emails and there was a process to, you know, process the glossaries and then ingest it.

But now, we are also planning to get it automated wherein, you can just simply upload the glossary from your onboarding portal. and third, we are also adding the accessibility bar to the plugin. So if you want to have text -to -speech also integrated or screen reader also integrated with the plugin that we just showed, that is also something that we are going to do in some time. So technology for dignity, Bajni Translation plugin would help. It is a powerful tool that will empower you to actually disseminate whatever information you want to, to actually reach the last mile. Moving on to the next segment, which is the glossary. So, you know, we all of us here, we would have some application, some website developed for… the ease of the user.

We would want a person, a student who is registering for a form who can actually do we would want the person to do it in their own preferred language. We would want a farmer to listen to the schemes that are available for him in his preferred language. We would want an Angadwari worker to have the schemes that are available for her told to her in her own language. So that is all what we are working for. We are working for inclusivity and we are working for accessibility. Next slide please. So while we do that we also add Bhashni’s layer to all our solutions or websites to have the actual information reach the last mile. But generally what happens is that you know we get a remark that the translation is not correct.

It is wrong. And after doing analysis with most of our customers we realize that the audience, that the users who are trying to actually use our product, they are not looking for accurate translations. They are looking for understanding the content, the intent of the content which is there on the solution on the website that they have created. And this is not the result, you know, for this we don’t have to focus on getting the accuracy of the translation. We actually have to focus on the context of the translation, use case of the translation, domain of the translation. So when we realize that, we understood the concept of glossary and that’s how glossary was formed. Next slide please.

Now you all would be, you know, waiting for, to understand what glossary is all about. So glossary saw… It involves two kinds of use cases. One is the post -translation that I just told you before. That, you know, home being translated to ghar in Hindi is absolutely right. But home being translated to home tab being translated to ghar is probably not correct. So post translation wherein you would want home to appear as Mukhya Prasht on the tab, home tab, that is something that we cater through with glossary. The second use case is like in the example, there is a bridge called Vakil Saab Bridge in Gujarat. So Vakil Saab Bridge if translated to English would become something like Lawyer Bridge or something.

We wouldn’t want that. Vakil Saab Bridge is our coined terminology and we would want it to retain its identity. We would want Vakil Saab Bridge to be written as Vakil Saab Bridge only in English. And this is the use case of transliteration. So these two kind of use cases are solved through glossary. What we do is we create. We create these glossaries with our customers and we ingest it to the customer’s specific API. Next slide, please. So, you know, like I told you the meaning of glossary, all of us here have different glossaries. Like, you know, the science domain glossaries are different. Gen Z has a different glossary altogether. You know, any region would have a specific kind of a glossary.

So all of these glossaries have to be created with us. And, you know, the customers who created those glossaries have got the translation, which are accepted by the end user, which are understood by the end user. Like you can see, Ministry of Panchayati Raj gave us 15 lakh words of the Panchayat. Survey of India has given us 16 lakh words. So if we create glossaries together, we can have the translation barrier completely eliminated. So I will now walk you through certain. Use cases wherein we faced problems with our customers, but they were not. translation issues, they were actually issues that could have been easily resolved through glossary. So if you can read this sentence here.

So this use case, you know, this problem was reported to us by Ministry of Home Affairs where Honourable Home Minister Sir’s profile was not reflecting correctly. So this was the English sentence. Okay. And this was the translation that we were getting. So if anybody can tell me what is the problem here? So because of this full stop, Srimati full stop, SMT full stop, what the model thought was that the sentence has ended here. And that is why the formation of the sentence is entirely incorrect. But the solution was very simple. What we had to do was just add SMT dot to the glossary or just remove the dot from the SMT. And we could have the correct output.

So it’s as simple as that. It’s not the translations problem. It’s the understanding of glossary problem. Next slide, please. So, okay. Can anybody tell me what’s the difference between this and this puzzle? To these two puzzle pieces, what is the difference? Yes. So one of them has a hyphen and the other one does not have a hyphen. So when we received the glossary from MSME, there was a hyphen in between PMS and dashboard. but actually on the website it was displayed without the hyphen. So glossary is that sensitive. If you give me PMS hyphen dashboard, it will only recognize that and translate that. But if there is no hyphen, it will not recognize that and it will not give you the translated output which you have given us in glossary.

So that’s the, and again, here there was a singular and plural problem. So street vendors was mentioned in the glossary sheet that we received. But actually street vendor was mentioned on the website. So if there is a singular and plural difference in the glossary sheet that you are giving to us and what is actually reflected on the website or your solution, it will create a difference. So this is one thing that you can also do through glossary. So, you know, we received. A requirement wherein they wanted, you know, the animal husbandry department wanted that the entire sentence should not be translated. the, you know, abbreviations should be skipped from translation. So if you just give me this sentence and this sentence as glossary pairs in English and Hindi, this can easily be achieved.

Next slide, please. Okay, so in one of the glossaries that we received was authorized officer, so they wanted us to write authorized officer as newt adhikari. But actually, newt adhikari means appointed officer. So this is also something that we have to be careful of. Because, you know, for the end user, so there are two kind of users that we have in this case, the English users and the Hindi users. So the English user would read it as authorized officer, but since we have added glossary and changed it to, newt adhikari in Hindi, the Hindi user would read it, would understand it as appointed officer. So we have to be very careful while drafting the glossaries.

Next slide please. Okay. So if I can just ask what is the full form of BN? Normally what do we consider as the full form of BN? Billion, right? We would not consider BN as battalion. But in BSF’s case, this was a huge problem. So BN for BSF means battalion and not billion. The entire context changes. So for BSF, we have created glossaries for all the abbreviations. So it is always suggested that you know whatever abbreviations that you are displaying on your website or your solution, just give it to us as glossary so that the correct one can be displayed. So okay. So, So can you tell me if PS to Minister being translated as Maanenya Vastra Mantri Ji ki Iji Sacheev, is there a difference or like what would be the problem here?

Fine, let me tell you. So this is also correct, this is also correct. But this is not the actual translation of PS to Minister. If we want to have Maanenya written in the Hindi translation of it, we should always have it in the English version of it also. Glossaries are supposed to be equal. They are supposed to be equally weighted. You cannot expect the model to add or delete words as their own. So basically what we did here was we went back to the customer and said, that if you want to add Maanenya, you can add Maanenya to the text. at the output, please add respected or honourable in the input. Only then it will be balanced out.

Next slide, please. So this is one request from our end only. We receive a lot of glossaries that are redundant in nature for us. By that I mean that, you know, for example, we received employment and skill development as the glossary terminology and the translation that we are getting in Hindi. That was the actual output of the model also. So in this case, if you are giving us the glossary, which is actually the output of the model, you are only creating redundancy. So if you can just avoid that and give us translations, give us the post -translations or transliterations that are not recognized by the model, that would be handy. Next slide please. Next slide.

So in the end I would just like to say that language is not just words, it is identity. Let us prepare India’s languages for the future of AI and let us create glossaries, let us have multilingual AI in, multilingual layer in all your solutions so that actually the end user is benefited, actually there is digital inclusion, accessibility, inclusivity. Thank you. Any question?

Audience

Can you hear me? So I was saying like the translation thing which you were showing, is it, I know like this has been sponsored by the government and stuff, so can it be also used for commercial purpose like for private or private? Public entity? Can they also use that in their websites also?

Swati Sharma

So, you know, we have different kind of collaborations with us. So for that collaboration, there is a different agreement altogether that is being created. If you want to know more about it, just go to the Bhajani Pavilion. We have stakeholders who are handling the startups, the private organizations also, and they can help you there.

Audience

And one more thing which I wanted to know. So like you were showing for the websites, it was by default we can choose the default language, right? So can it be also extended? Like let’s say in some use cases, we could have someone who is logging in from Delhi. They would want to see it in Hindi and someone who is coming from Maharashtra. So can it change the default languages? Can it change from the region perspective?

Swati Sharma

So that’s an interesting use case. From what I’ve understood, you want different regions to have websites opened in different default languages. As per my knowledge, I don’t see a technical challenge to it. But again, we will have to look at the use case at our end and see if this can be deferred. It’s a very use case. This is a very interesting use case. We’ll look at it. Thank you.

Audience

Hi. Hi. So we all are aware that we have multilingual languages. And apparently, they have been trained on a lot of words also according to their domain knowledge. So if we have glossaries, how do we ensure that each and every glossary according to the domain is maintained and then trained or fine -tuned?

Swati Sharma

So glossaries are customized. For example, somebody from Ministry of Home Affairs would not want the glossary of, let’s say, CSI. Right. Right. you know the domains are different the contexts are different so glossaries are ingested only are customized and are ingested to the client itself they are not we have general glossaries also that can be applied to all but since glossary does not have the you know one glossary fits all type of a solution so we customize it for a client and then ingest it on to that client solution itself not to other clients or other environments.

Audience

Thanks So the glossaries you have do you have them do you use them to fine tune your models or is it just available as documents to infer while using?

Swati Sharma

So we do that we try to fine tune the models as well but we there are lot of things that we have to look at it look around while doing that because you know we have to classify them into different domains and then apply fine tuning models for the domain space. So it’s a long process, but we do that. Okay. Thank you. If there are any other questions, I will be available at the Bhashni Pavilion here also. And I would request everybody to please come visit us, explore our solutions, explore our services. And thank you so much for being a lovely audience. Thank you.

Swati Sharma

Speech speed

135 words per minute

Speech length

Future roadmap and enhancements

Topics

Closing all digital divides | Artificial intelligence

Shailendra Pal Singh

Speech speed

127 words per minute

Speech length

Technical features & customization

Topics

Information and communication technologies for development

Audience

Speech speed

144 words per minute

Speech length

220 words

Speech time

91 seconds

Maintaining and fine‑tuning glossaries per domain

Explanation

The audience asked how glossaries can be kept up‑to‑date for each domain and used for model fine‑tuning.

Evidence

“So if we have glossaries, how do we ensure that each and every glossary according to the domain is maintained and then trained or fine -tuned?” [66].

Major discussion point

Glossary functionality and importance

Topics

Artificial intelligence | Closing all digital divides

Agreements

Agreement points

Language barriers create significant digital exclusion in India

Speakers

– Swati Sharma
– Shailendra Pal Singh

Arguments

Arguments

Plugin automatically applies to all pages of a website once integrated, maintaining language selection across navigation

Plugin supports direct translation between any Indian languages without using English as an intermediary

Skip translation class allows certain website sections like calendars and email IDs to remain untranslated

The plugin uses 350+ models and sits on top of 500+ websites, enabling translation for citizens who don’t understand English or Hindi

Summary

Both speakers agree that the plugin must handle complex real-world scenarios including cross-page consistency, selective translation, and direct inter-language translation

Topics

Information and communication technologies for development | Artificial intelligence

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers view multilingual support as fundamental infrastructure for digital inclusion rather than an optional feature, emphasizing the systematic approach needed to address India’s language diversity

Speakers

– Swati Sharma
– Shailendra Pal Singh

Arguments

Bhashini aims to create a unified multilingual layer for India’s digital ecosystem, providing language as infrastructure rather than just a feature

The plugin uses 350+ models and sits on top of 500+ websites, enabling translation for citizens who don’t understand English or Hindi

Topics

Information and communication technologies for development | Closing all digital divides

Both speakers emphasize the importance of technical standards and broad compatibility to ensure the solution can be widely adopted across different platforms and meet government compliance requirements

Speakers

– Swati Sharma
– Shailendra Pal Singh

Arguments

The plugin is DBM compliant and framework agnostic, working across different website technologies and including accessibility features

The plugin uses 350+ models and sits on top of 500+ websites, enabling translation for citizens who don’t understand English or Hindi

Topics

Information and communication technologies for development | The enabling environment for digital development

Unexpected consensus

Context over accuracy in translation

Speakers

– Swati Sharma

Arguments

Glossaries address context-specific translation needs, focusing on user understanding rather than just translation accuracy

Explanation

There was unexpected consensus that perfect translation accuracy is less important than user comprehension and contextual appropriateness. This challenges conventional assumptions about translation quality metrics and suggests a more user-centric approach to multilingual technology

Topics

Information and communication technologies for development | Artificial intelligence

Precision requirements for glossary implementation

Speakers

– Swati Sharma

Arguments

Glossaries must be precisely matched – differences in punctuation, singular/plural forms, or spacing can cause recognition failures

Explanation

The discussion revealed unexpected consensus on the extreme precision required for glossary systems, where even minor formatting differences can cause failures. This highlights the technical complexity hidden behind seemingly simple translation customization

Topics

Information and communication technologies for development | Artificial intelligence

Overall assessment

Summary

There is strong consensus among speakers on the fundamental problem of digital language exclusion in India, the need for simple technical solutions, and the importance of treating multilingual support as core infrastructure. The discussion shows alignment on both the scale of the challenge (800+ million people excluded by English-only content) and the approach to solving it through accessible, comprehensive technical solutions.

Consensus level

High level of consensus with collaborative rather than competitive dynamics. The speakers demonstrate shared understanding of both technical requirements and social impact goals. This strong alignment suggests favorable conditions for scaling multilingual digital infrastructure initiatives, though the technical precision requirements for features like glossaries may present implementation challenges that require careful coordination and standardization efforts.

Differences

Different viewpoints

Unexpected differences

Overall assessment

Summary

This transcript represents a presentation and demonstration session rather than a debate or discussion with disagreements. All speakers were aligned on the same mission of addressing India’s digital language divide through the Bhashini translation plugin.

Disagreement level

No disagreement – This was a collaborative presentation where Swati Sharma and Shailendra Pal Singh worked together to demonstrate their solution, with audience members asking clarifying questions rather than challenging the approach. The session focused on technical demonstrations and use case explanations rather than policy debates or conflicting viewpoints on how to address multilingual digital inclusion.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers view multilingual support as fundamental infrastructure for digital inclusion rather than an optional feature, emphasizing the systematic approach needed to address India’s language diversity

Speakers

– Swati Sharma
– Shailendra Pal Singh

Arguments

Bhashini aims to create a unified multilingual layer for India’s digital ecosystem, providing language as infrastructure rather than just a feature

The plugin uses 350+ models and sits on top of 500+ websites, enabling translation for citizens who don’t understand English or Hindi

Topics

Information and communication technologies for development | Closing all digital divides

Both speakers emphasize the importance of technical standards and broad compatibility to ensure the solution can be widely adopted across different platforms and meet government compliance requirements

Speakers

– Swati Sharma
– Shailendra Pal Singh

Arguments

The plugin is DBM compliant and framework agnostic, working across different website technologies and including accessibility features

The plugin uses 350+ models and sits on top of 500+ websites, enabling translation for citizens who don’t understand English or Hindi

Topics

Information and communication technologies for development | The enabling environment for digital development

Takeaways

Key takeaways

Bhashini Translation Plugin successfully addresses India’s digital language divide by providing multilingual access to websites with minimal technical implementation – just one line of code

The plugin has demonstrated significant real-world impact with 400+ integrated websites, 24+ million inferences, and serves as critical infrastructure for digital inclusion rather than just a feature

Glossary system is essential for contextually accurate translations, requiring precise domain-specific customization rather than generic translation accuracy

The technology enables direct translation between any Indian languages without English as intermediary, supporting 22 scheduled languages with expansion to 36 Indian and 35 international languages planned

Plugin offers advanced customization features including voice activation, selective translation skipping, regional language prioritization, and mixed-language content handling

Language accessibility is positioned as a fundamental infrastructure need for India’s 1.4 billion people, where 800+ million are not fluent in English but 95% of digital content remains in English

Resolutions and action items

Interested parties should visit the Bhashini Pavilion for detailed information about private/commercial collaborations and technical demonstrations

Future development roadmap confirmed including automated glossary upload portal, accessibility bar integration, and expanded language support

Stakeholders available at Bhashini Pavilion to handle startup and private organization partnerships with different agreement structures

Unresolved issues

Region-based automatic language selection feature requested by audience member needs technical feasibility assessment and use case evaluation

Specific details about commercial pricing, licensing terms, and collaboration agreements for private entities were not provided during the session

Technical implementation details for fine-tuning models with domain-specific glossaries require further discussion

Process and timeline for accessing the expanded 36 Indian languages and 35 international languages not clearly specified

Suggested compromises

For balanced glossary translations, customers should add equivalent terms (like ‘Honourable’ in English if ‘Maanenya’ is desired in Hindi) rather than expecting the model to add or delete words independently

This question introduced the concept of location-based automatic language selection, suggesting a more sophisticated approach to user experience that goes beyond manual language selection to predictive, context-aware systems.

Impact

This question opened up discussion about advanced personalization features and demonstrated that the audience was thinking beyond the current capabilities to future possibilities, pushing the presenters to consider more sophisticated use cases.

Overall assessment

Explanation

The complexity of domain-specific model fine-tuning suggests need for better classification and training methodologies

Disclaimer: This is not an official session record. DiploAI generates these resources from audiovisual recordings, and they are presented as-is, including potential errors. Due to logistical challenges, such as discrepancies in audio/video or transcripts, names may be misspelled. We strive for accuracy to the best of our ability.