BHASHINI
Also called: National Language Translation Mission, Digital India BHASHINI Division · Topic: Transparency, Accountability and e-Governance · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
BHASHINI is the Government of India's public platform for language AI, meaning computer tools that understand and translate Indian languages. The National Language Translation Mission works through BHASHINI, and the Digital India BHASHINI Division runs it. The platform turns text and speech in all 22 scheduled languages (the languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution) into digital data. It offers translation for 36 Indian languages in text and 23 in voice, and its datasets and models are open for anyone to use. This matters for e-governance, because citizens who do not read English or Hindi can still use digital public services in their own language.
Example
At Kashi Tamil Sangamam 2.0, BHASHINI translated Hindi speech into Tamil in real time. That let Tamil-speaking visitors follow the talks as they happened. Similarly, when the Government of Goa launched its own Konkani AI model at Goa AI Tech Conclave 2026, BHASHINI provided live speech translation at the event.
Don't confuse with
- AIKosh: AIKosh is the IndiaAI datasets platform, a shared store of data and AI models. BHASHINI is the language platform, and some of its datasets and models are shared through AIKosh.
- Scheduled languages (22): 22 is the number of languages in the Eighth Schedule. BHASHINI covers 36 languages for text and 23 for voice, so these numbers are different.