MeitY Secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney recently explained the "magic of AI" that can enable speakers of different Indian languages to converse with each other in real time. He spoke about the centre's National Language Translation Mission that aims to revolutionise the internet experience for non-English speakers in India.

While speaking on Saturday on the occasion of NIXI's 18th foundation day, Shri Sawhney said, "We have started working on a very ambitious National Language Translation Mission. See the magic of new technology. For centuries we have lived with the reality that a person who knows only Bengali cannot communicate with a person who knows only Malayalam. This will change."

He further added that the India is a country of "continental proportions" given its population size and diversity. For a nation that has 79.5 cr active internet users and 114 cr mobile subscribers, the Indian language content on the internet is miniscule. The government's plans to leverage artificial intelligence to change this scenario in the favour of India's humungous population of native language speakers.

“It might take us 5-7 years but technologies that are coming in give us an opportunity to aim at this kind of ambitious level. We have to grow content on the internet in each of our languages,” Shri Sawhney said.