Voice-first AI and translation tools can help expand multilingual access to academic and research content, government officials said.

BHASHINI’s multilingual AI ecosystem integrates language datasets, AI models, APIs and applications to support various language technology needs.

The platform has recorded more than 10 billion cumulative AI inferences. It supports text in 36 Indian languages, voice in 23 Indian languages and 35 international languages.

BHASHINI’s website translation plugin also enables multilingual access across more than 800 government websites, according to an official statement.

The Digital India BHASHINI Division (DIBD), under Digital India Corporation (DIC) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), participated in the 29th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD-2026), held at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi from October 23 to 25.

Representing DIBD, Baishali Chakraborty led a session on BHASHINI’s multilingual artificial intelligence capabilities and their potential to make scholarly knowledge accessible across languages.

The session explored how BHASHINI’s Language-First Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) can help higher education institutions, libraries and research repositories overcome language barriers and expand access to academic content.

A live demonstration of Shrutlekh showcased real-time speech transcription with simultaneous translation. The demonstration highlighted its potential applications in lecture halls, research seminars, conferences and academic discussions.

The session also examined how AI-powered translation could support electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs), including lengthy and specialised academic documents. Presenters showcased BHASHINI Pragati, a document translation workbench developed for the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), to demonstrate structured document translation and review.

According to the official statement, the workbench can process large documents ranging from 100 to 500 pages while incorporating quality checks and data security measures.

Harshad Sharma, Senior Manager (Finance) at DIBD, said making research and scholarly knowledge accessible across Indian languages would help build a more inclusive knowledge ecosystem.

He added that BHASHINI’s multilingual AI capabilities, including document translation and speech technologies, could help universities, libraries and research repositories reach wider audiences. Sharma also stressed the importance of engaging with academic institutions to understand their needs and develop reliable solutions for translating theses, dissertations and other research content across languages.