UGC invites authors to write books in 12 Indian languages for undergraduate courses

New Delhi: The University Grants Commission has invited faculty members, authors, and academicians to come forward to translate academic books for undergraduate classes in the arts, science, and social sciences streams in 12 Indian languages. The higher education body is also identifying nodal universities across states to coordinate the exercise.

On Thursday, the UGC sent out a notice of expression of interest inviting interested authors. The higher education body has been working on translating textbooks in regional languages since 2022. The textbooks will be translated to Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.

“We are identifying nodal universities in different states who will coordinate the exercise of forming teams of authors who can write high quality textbooks in Indian languages. This effort is in tune with NEP2020’s goal to provide learning opportunities to students in Universities in Indian languages,” UGC Chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar said.

In July last year, the UGC had issued guidelines for the translation of textbooks, stating that an Al-based translation tool for Indian languages, Anuvadini, developed by the AICTE will be used for translation. The tool enables text file translation, speech-to-text typing, and editing.

Earlier, Kumar had also met with several publishing houses to explore the feasibility of the translation of textbooks for undergraduate programmes. In December 2022, Chamu Krishna Shastry, chairperson of the high-powered Committee for Promotion of Indian Languages, had also carried out a study to explore the feasibility of making textbooks available across various mediums of study.