Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently leveraged the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to speak to a Tamil-speaking audience, breaking down the language barrier. During a lecture at the cultural festival Kashi Tamil Sangamam in Varanasi, he employed Bhashini, an AI-based translation tool.

Bhashini, also known as BHASa INterface for India or Digital India Bhashini, is a language translation tool powered by AI. PM Modi announced it in July of last year. It is a very useful tool for a country with such a wide range of languages.

The application was used to instantly translate PM Modi's address into Tamil. "Today, new technology is being used here through Artificial Intelligence." "This is a new beginning, and hopefully it will make it easier for me to reach you," Prime Minister Modi remarked during his speech.

Bhashini allows people to communicate in their native language while also communicating with speakers of other Indian languages. Its goal is to make translation services in Indian languages more convenient by adding voice-based access and boosting the use of vernacular languages. This web platform also features a distinct 'Bhasha Daan' area where users can participate to a variety of crowdsourcing efforts. It is also available through Android and iOS apps.

What exactly is Bhashini?

Amitabh Nag, Chief Executive Officer of Bhashini, highlighted the use cases and functionality to Business Today's Sakshi at the Digital India Experience Zone during the G20 Summit. He claims that it offers a wide range of translation services, such as automatic speech recognition in 12 to 14 languages, text translation in 22 languages, and speech synthesis in 14 languages.

"Bhashini provides all translation-related services," according to Nag. "Speech-to-speech translation is one of our demonstrated use cases." For example, if I speak in English and you want to hear it in Hindi, the platform can do so in real-time."

The platform also contains the Jugalbandi app, which uses generative AI to identify spoken questions and deliver responses. This tool is very important for people who are not digitally literate or able to read.

"Our generation is often overwhelmed with information," Nag goes on to say. "Bhashini can respond quickly and rationally to specific questions and answers on specific subjects." It goes above and beyond standard search functions by intelligently answering your inquiries and bringing you to the next level of information availability."

While the current edition of Bhashini concentrates on specific issues, Nag explains that different versions are being developed that will cover additional topics and information. "I don't want to preempt the announcements from our partner organizations who are working on it, but you will soon see those announcements," he said. The Bhashini app is presently available in beta form on both the iOS and Google Play Stores.