National Translation Mission Reviewed

New Delhi: The Ministry of Human Resource Development has taken measures to review the functioning of the National Translation Mission, which is viewed as a most important Scheme by the National Knowledge Commission, and as a major initiative of the government in making Knowledge accessible to all by transcending language barriers. The Mission in its first phase is expected to translate knowledge texts -at graduate and post graduate level -available in English in over 15 disciplines into all the 22 languages listed under the 8th schedule.

The NTM is expected to strengthen the growth and development of all Indian languages in a rapidly modernizing society and pave way for a functioning knowledge society with healthy multilingualism. In this connection the Director, CIIL, Mysore, who is the nodal officer of the scheme and the Project Director, National Translation Mission (NTM) met the Union Minister of Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal recently and apprised him of the developments in NTM. The presentation from NTM reflected the Mission's mandate and its achievements that include the preparation and publication of Basic Dictionaries, creation of University Database and Databases of translations and translators, interactive website etc. The Status of publication of textbooks was also discussed. Sibal was briefed about the short term and long term goals of NTM. Some of the significant suggestions during the presentation included - exploring the possibility of NTM becoming a certifying agency which has implications for employment generation; subtitling/dubbing available e-content; translating open source ware for various disciplines etc. At the conclusion of the meeting, Sibal assured NTM that all support would be extended to address all problematic issues (manpower development being one of them), and adequate measures would be tak