Software to boost Hindi content on web in the offing
The ministry of home affairs (MHA) was preparing to launch a memory-based software that can translate “world knowledge and literature” into Hindi in a bid to increase web content in the language, officials familiar with the development said.
The software is currently being developed by MHA’s department of official language and is likely to be launched in August, two ministry officials said.
Called the Memory Adharith Anuvadh Software (MAAS), the programme would initially be used to translate the central government’s documents and data into Hindi, ministry officials said, but added that MHA’s long-term plan was to use the translation tool to increase the presence of Hindi content on the internet.
MHA officials said that although Hindi had one of the highest number of speakers in the world, its content on the web remained less than many foreign languages that had fewer speakers.
“Take for instance Portuguese. Its speakers are fewer than Hindi’s yet its content on the internet is massive,” a senior home ministry official said.
Stating the ‘benefits’ of the software, the official quoted above said: “As of now, the government files and data are translated manually, which is time consuming and also difficult because the keyboards are still in English. Once MAAS becomes operational, the same work will be done with almost 100% accuracy in a matter of hours.”
An official of the MHA’s department of language said if the software proved to be a success then they would distribute it among all state and central government institutes that have Hindi as an official language. However, the official added, MHA’s end goal was to ensure free distribution of the translation software among the general public in a bid to increase Hindi content on the internet.
“The cyber space is an important area of development and there is a lot of knowledge available on the platform in English. However, we also want the information to be accessible to those who prefer Hindi. Once the translation tool is used by common people, Hindi content is bound to rise on the web.”
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