The Digital India BHASHINI Division (DIBD), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), successfully organised BHASHINI Samudaye: Strengthening India’s Language AI Ecosystem at Nalanda Hall, Dr Ambedkar International Centre, New Delhi, in collaboration with Wadhwani AI. The workshop represented a significant step in consolidating India’s language AI ecosystem through collaborative engagement, participatory governance, and shared ownership of public digital infrastructure.

The event began with welcome remarks and the felicitation of distinguished guests, followed by the formal inauguration. Senior leadership from MeitY and the Digital India BHASHINI Division outlined the vision for a coordinated, sovereign, and inclusive language AI ecosystem, anchored in public digital infrastructure, community participation, and ethical data practices.

A fireside session reflected on the evolution of BHASHINI as a national language AI platform, emphasizing the importance of ecosystem partnerships in scaling multilingual AI solutions for governance, education, and public service delivery. The discussion highlighted the collaborative role of government agencies, academic institutions, civil society organisations, and industry stakeholders in advancing language AI initiatives across India.

The workshop convened language experts, academic institutions, civil society organisations, and data practitioners to examine use cases and identify pathways for co-creating, governing, and scaling language AI solutions under the National Language Translation Mission (NLTM).

Key Sessions and Highlights

• Scaling BHASHINI Together: Platform, Priorities, and Pathways – focused sessions covered platform capabilities, strategic priorities, and collaboration pathways with institutions, states, and implementation partners.
• Roadmap Presentation – BHASHINI’s plans for platform expansion and ecosystem engagement were presented.
• BHASHINI Samudaye Platform – structured presentations and partner feedback aimed at strengthening participatory governance and collaborative contribution mechanisms.
• BHASHINI in Action – live demonstrations, real-world use cases, and a walkthrough of BhashaDaan, the citizen contribution platform promoting public participation in language data creation.
• Expression of Interest (EoI) to Strengthen Data Systems – aimed at deepening data partnerships and aligning contributors with BHASHINI’s standards for ethical, inclusive, and scalable data creation.

Participants engaged in deliberations on collaborative data creation, institutional partnerships, and mechanisms to sustain India’s language AI ecosystem. Discussions emphasized responsible data practices, quality standards, and long-term collaboration to ensure inclusivity and scalability of language technologies.

Quotes from the Dignitaries

“BHASHINI moved from rule-based systems to AI-powered inclusive engines, providing language services to all citizens and advancing towards full societal inclusivity.”

“Samudaye is about building a living ecosystem—data creators, annotators, translators, developers, users, and governments—co-developing language technology together, with shared value and responsibility.” — Shri Amitabh Nag, CEO, Digital India BHASHINI Division (MeitY)

Through sustained partnerships with government, academia, civil society, and industry, BHASHINI is creating a multilingual AI ecosystem that is inclusive, scalable, and aligned with public service objectives. Collective efforts ensure that language ceases to be a barrier to opportunity or governance.” — Shri Tarun Pandey, Scientist ‘E’, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology

“BHASHINI demonstrates the importance of structured dataset creation, domain-specific accuracy, and community participation. This approach is critical for developing AI systems that reflect India’s linguistic diversity and societal needs.”
— Prof. Girish Nath Jha, School of Sanskrit & Indic Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University

“The success of BHASHINI lies in its comprehensive approach to translation: covering sentence-level, discourse-level, and conversational translation across all 22 scheduled languages, including non-scheduled languages and dialects. Addressing the challenges in Dravidian languages, which often lack Sanskrit equivalents, requires expanded datasets and continued collaboration. BHASHINI’s work ensures no language is left behind.” — Smt. Shobha L., Member Research Staff, AU-KBC Research Centre

“Through AI and BHASHINI, we are translating and dubbing content into multiple languages, helping us reach children and caregivers more effectively across India.”
— Sukhna Sawhney, Head – Early Childhood Care & Education, Rocket Learning

The presence of senior officials from MeitY, the Digital India BHASHINI Division, academic institutions, civil society organisations, and ecosystem partners reaffirmed the shared vision of a multilingual, inclusive, and citizen-centric Digital India.

The BHASHINI Samudaye workshop concluded with a reaffirmation of the commitment to strengthen India’s language AI ecosystem through shared ownership, coordinated action, and long-term collaboration, ensuring that language does not remain a barrier to digital inclusion and advancing the vision of democratised and scalable Artificial Intelligence for social and economic empowerment.

As part of these efforts, BHASHINI, in collaboration with the Gates Foundation and implemented by Civic Data Lab, launched the Dataset Onboarding Supporting Team (DOST) to support the systematic identification, preparation, and onboarding of high-value datasets into BHASHINI and AI Kosh. This initiative will help address gaps in multilingual text, speech, and regional data, further strengthening India’s public-good, inclusive, and bias-aware AI infrastructure across governance, education, healthcare, agriculture, and climate sectors.

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MSZ

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