The Digital India BHASHINI Division (DIBD), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), participated in the 10th edition of the TiE Global Summit – Rajasthan Chapter, held at the Jaipur Exhibition & Convention Centre (JECC) on 4-5 January, in collaboration with the Department of Information Technology & Communication, Government of Rajasthan.
As part of the inaugural programme, the Summit enabled BHASHINI to demonstrate the live deployment of Shrutlekh, an AI-powered speech-to-text and multilingual translation tool, in a real governance setting, including the re-telecast of the address delivered by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi at the AI Action Summit, Paris (11 February 2025). Shrutlekh provided real-time multilingual translation of the address, ensuring that the Prime Minister’s views on responsible, inclusive, and sustainable AI were effectively communicated to a diverse audience.
Shrutlekh was run live during key sessions, including the welcome address by the IT Secretary, Government of Rajasthan, and speech by Cabinet Minister, enabling real-time speech recognition, transcription, and English–Hindi translation through Auto Language Detection (ALD). This live deployment demonstrated how language AI can adapt seamlessly to speakers switching languages, reduce communication barriers, and ensure that policy messages are clearly understood by diverse audiences, thereby strengthening inclusivity and accessibility at large public forums.
On 5 January 2026, During the Summit, Shrutlekh also enabled multilingual access for sessions, including “Leadership Beyond Labels: Women, Power & Public Service”, where former Union Minister Smt. Smriti Irani spoke on empowering women-led micro-enterprises as both a social and economic imperative. Real-time translation ensured wider linguistic accessibility and meaningful participation.
During the panel discussion “From Maps to Markets: Building Technology Platforms That Power Everyday India”, Shri Amitabh Nag, CEO, Digital India BHASHINI Division, emphasised the critical importance of data collection in building scalable and inclusive AI systems for India. He noted that “high-quality, diverse, and representative language data is foundational for developing accurate speech and translation models, particularly for Indian languages and dialects,” and underscored that “data creation and ingestion is a collaborative effort,” requiring active participation from governments, academic institutions, startups, and citizens. Elaborating further, he stated, “Our initial focus has been on governance and service delivery through voice-enabled multilingual communication. We now aim to partner with enterprises to improve supply chains, logistics, and internal efficiency. This creates opportunities to reduce costs, boost sales, and enhance customer engagement through language and voice technologies”. He also highlighted the role of language in education, stating that “enabling students to learn in their mother tongue through large-scale translation of educational material is essential, and the long-held assumption that ‘what is good in language is also good in knowledge’ needs to be broken to strengthen learning outcomes.”
The engagement at the TiE Global Summit 2026 helped deepen ongoing interactions with the Government of Rajasthan and a wide range of ecosystem stakeholders. The Summit provided a constructive platform to exchange perspectives, demonstrate practical use of language technologies, and identify future opportunities for collaboration in areas such as language data creation, deployment of language tools, and the advancement of inclusive, citizen-centric digital governance initiatives within the State.
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MSZ
