Presentation on NTM to Dr. Sam Pitroda

A team from National Translation Mission led by Prof. V. Saratchandran Nair, Project Director, NTM, made a presentation on NTM to Dr. Sam Pitroda, advisor to the Prime Minister of India on public information infrastructure and innovations and the chairman of National Innovation Council on 21st March 2014. Prof. Nair appraised Dr. Pitroda about the progress made by NTM, especially, in the field of Knowledge Texts translation and preparation of glossaries in Indian languages. Some of the future plans of NTM, especially regarding the development of glossaries through online collaboration were also discussed in the meeting.

Dr. Pitroda took note of the developments and made a few observations and suggestions. Accomplishments in the area of Knowledge Texts were noted down. However, since NTM has crossed over 5 years of existence, Dr. Pitroda suggested that it is time NTM broadens its focus/emphasis from knowledge texts to include the other proposals of National Knowledge Commission for NTM. Following were a three point programme that could be added to NTM’s next course of action:

 
Dr. Sam Pitroda (3rd from left) and Prof. V. Saratchandran Nair, Project Director, NTM (4th from left) during the release.
1. NTM should propose a national programme for the development of Machine Translation Systems for and between Indian languages as NTM’s objectives cannot be achieved only by human translation. NTM should attempt to bring all the people or agencies, both government and private, involved in machine translation onboard in this programme. A roadmap may be prepared to achieve the goals in 5 to 10 years.
2. It is necessary that NTM should become autonomous once such a proposal has to be implemented. Dr. Pitroda said that actually NTM was given a status of a Mission in the beginning so that it would be autonomous. Therefore, it is expected that NTM will alter its path from the existing bureaucratic one to that of mission mode.
3. NTM should begin translating literary texts between Indian languages through crowd sourcing. NTM may do this through a portal specifically developed for the purpose. The method should be list a set of texts in Indian languages, their number could touch even a thousand. Machine translated versions of these texts should be uploaded on this portal. The texts may have a very low accuracy percentage, for instance, something between 30% to 40%. However, these texts should be made available to the public through the portal who can actually edit the translations to bring them to perfection. Anyone interested in translating, be it a retired army officer or a homemaker, for instance, should be invited to be part of this crowd sourcing. Levels of editing these texts need not be restricted. Experts could be involved in the editing. NTM should moderate the activity. The first of the three proposals, where different MT groups in India would get involved with NTM, would provide the means of bringing out the first level machine translated outputs. The MT groups in the country should make the translations available through the systems that they have developed.

NTM was also asked to conduct the meeting of the different MT groups to form the national programme as early as possible, even before the end of April. NTM should also discuss the issue of acquiring copyrights for the titles to be translated through crowd sourcing. The translators who get involved may find it an enterprise of contributing to the nation. They should be properly acknowledged. Interest among public would also demand that NTM expedites its work on a nationwide certification programme for translators. Dr. Pitroda appreciated the brochure NTM Handbook" that NTM had prepared. He was glad that NTM had a team of young people. It was also observed that NTM was finding it difficult to engage consultants from different language groups with the present remuneration structure being the major hurdle.

During the occasion, Dr. Pitroda also released the NTM translation, Bharatiya Darshanara Ruparekha, the Odia translation of Outlines of Indian Philosophy by M. Hiriyanna. The meeting took place in the premises of Infosys Limited, Mysore. Prof. Saratchandran Nair, PD, NTM was accompanied by Dr. P. Mathew, Dr. V. Geethakumary, Shri. Biswadip Gogoi, Shri. Abhisek Sarkar, Shri. Aditya Kr. Panda and Shri. Winston Cruz for the presentation.