The ministry of minority affairs (MoMA) on Tuesday conducted an insightful workshop on 'BhashaDaan', a citizen-driven initiative under BHASHINI, India’s National Language Technology Mission, aimed at preserving India’s rich and diverse linguistic heritage through digital means.

The workshop brought together experts, institutional stakeholders, and community representatives to explore strategies for safeguarding endangered and classical languages in the digital era. Special focus was laid on Pali, Prakrit, Avesta Pahlavi, and the Gurmukhi script, highlighting the urgent need for developing high-quality monolingual corpora and encouraging community-led data contributions.

Ministry secretary Dr. Chandra Shekhar Kumar has been laying strong emphasis on learning, documenting, and preserving classical and endangered languages through the effective use of Artificial Intelligence, according to an official press release.

BHASHINI, an AI-powered platform spearheaded by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), is designed to break language barriers by providing digital tools for Indian languages. The mission enables real-time text and speech translation and ensures access to digital services in citizens’ own languages, fostering digital inclusion through open-source models, datasets, and APIs.

During the workshop, participants were introduced to the BhashaDaan ecosystem, its significance for low-resource and classical languages, and the critical roles of contributors, institutions, and language communities. Detailed sessions covered the end-to-end technical workflow, from data ingestion and validation to the creation of golden datasets essential for building robust AI language models.

Live demonstrations of Bolo India, Suno India, Likho India, and Dekho India modes on the BHASHINI platform showcased how citizens can contribute speech, text, and image data in their native and classical languages. The sessions also addressed platform operations, technical readiness, resource planning, dataset requirements, and best practices to ensure smooth and effective execution of language digitization efforts.

Speaking on the occasion, officials from the Ministry of Minority Affairs emphasized that empowering communities to participate in language preservation is key to ensuring the survival and relevance of India’s linguistic heritage for future generations.

The workshop reaffirmed the ministry’s commitment to leveraging technology for cultural preservation and inclusive development. By aligning with BHASHINI and BhashaDaan, the ministry aims to ensure that every language, and every voice, finds its rightful place in India’s digital future.