The Digital India BHASHINI Division, under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, has organised an international workshop in Kathmandu to advance multilingual artificial intelligence technology between India and Nepal. The workshop, called BHASHINI SANGAM, brought together government officials, academics, researchers, developers and language experts from both countries to explore how AI can help people access digital services in their own languages.
The initiative builds on a formal understanding between the Digital India BHASHINI Division and Kathmandu University to collaborate on language technology and digital public infrastructure.
What the workshop covered
The Digital India BHASHINI Division demonstrated its multilingual AI capabilities, including speech recognition, real-time translation, voice-enabled interaction and document processing. The platform currently supports 36 Indian text languages and 23 Indian voice languages.
A key part of the workshop was a BhashaDaan session, which focused on how language data and community participation help build representative AI systems. Participants explored ways to contribute data through speech, text and image in their own languages.
The workshop examined practical applications of this technology in Nepali, Maithili, Newari and other languages, combining BHASHINI’s technology capabilities with Kathmandu University’s research strengths to develop solutions relevant to communities across India and Nepal.
The Memorandum of Understanding between the two organisations provides the foundation for ongoing collaboration on language datasets, research and real-world language AI solutions.
What this means for you
If you speak Nepali, Maithili, Newari or other languages shared between India and Nepal, this collaboration could eventually make digital services easier to access in your preferred language. Government websites and digital platforms may become more accessible through AI-powered translation and voice-based features. For developers and researchers working on language technology, the partnership opens opportunities to contribute language data and build applications tailored to local communities.