What is Bhashini Platform?

About BHASHINI

• BHASHINI stands for BHASha INterface for India.
• It is an AI-powered language technology platform launched in 2022 under the National Language Translation Mission (NLTM).
• It operates under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) through the Digital India BHASHINI Division (DIBD), under the Digital India Corporation (DIC).
• Its primary objective is to overcome language barriers and make digital content and public services accessible in Indian languages.
• It uses Artificial Intelligence (AI), Natural Language Processing (NLP) and speech technologies to enable multilingual communication.

Key Features of BHASHINI

• AI-Based Language Translation: Enables translation of text and speech between different languages.
• Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR): Converts spoken language into text.
• Text-to-Speech (TTS): Converts written text into spoken language.
• Neural Machine Translation (NMT): Uses neural networks to translate text between languages.
• Transliteration: Converts text from one writing system into another without necessarily translating its meaning.
• Voice-Based Services: Enables users to interact with digital platforms through voice, helping people who face literacy or language barriers.
• Developer Support: Provides APIs, language models, datasets and other resources to developers and institutions building multilingual applications.

Important Initiatives under BHASHINI

• BhashaDaan: A crowdsourcing initiative that encourages citizens to contribute language data, including text and speech, to improve Indian-language AI systems.
• BHASHINI Samudaye: A collaborative ecosystem involving contributors, startups, academic institutions and research organisations to develop multilingual AI resources.
• Shrutlekh: An AI-powered tool for real-time speech-to-text transcription and translation, supporting multilingual communication at conferences and other events.
• BHASHINI Sahyogi: A co-creation and partnership programme that promotes the integration of language technologies into government services and other digital platforms.

Conclusion

BHASHINI is an important initiative for building an inclusive and multilingual Digital India. By combining AI with Indian-language technologies, it seeks to ensure that language does not become a barrier to accessing digital information and public services.