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Tag: #IndianLanguages

10 languages, one AI app: Hyderabad police reinvents complaint filing

Big news in public safety innovation! The Hyderabad City Police has just deployed AI-CopWriter – a first-of-its-kind mobile app that lets officers record, transcribe, and translate citizen complaints in real-time across 10 Indian languages.

✨ Why This Matters: 🔹 Breaks Language Barriers: Citizens can now file complaints in their mother tongue – no more miscommunication or hesitation due to language gaps
🔹 Instant FIR Generation: Spoken words are transcribed and translated into accurate, ready-to-file FIRs within seconds
🔹 Inclusive Policing: Makes police services accessible to migrants, non-Telugu speakers, and diverse communities across Hyderabad
🔹 Efficiency Boost: Reduces manual documentation time, letting officers focus on resolution, not paperwork

🤖 Part of a Smarter Policing Ecosystem: This isn’t a standalone tool – it joins Hyderabad Police’s growing AI portfolio: ✅ C-Mitra: AI-assisted cybercrime complaint drafting
✅ AI Duty Allocation: Transparent, unbiased posting system for armed reserve personnel
✅ SOCEYE: AI-powered social media surveillance to track cyber threats and protect public safety

💡 The Bigger Picture:
When technology meets empathy, public service transforms. This initiative isn’t just about automation – it’s about accessibility, equity, and trust. By meeting citizens where they are – linguistically and digitally – Hyderabad is setting a benchmark for citizen-centric policing in India.

👏 Kudos to Commissioner V.C. Sajjanar and the Hyderabad Police team for leading with innovation that truly serves people.

IIIT Hyderabad takes a step forward in inclusive education, expanding learning opportunities for visually impaired learners.

IIIT Hyderabad takes a step forward in inclusive education, expanding learning opportunities for visually impaired learners.

Hyderabad: Researchers at the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Hyderabad have launched Drishti Library, an AI-powered initiative under the Bhashini mission aimed at improving access to higher-education resources for visually impaired students.

For years, visually impaired learners have faced significant challenges due to the lack of accessible study materials in higher education. Drishti Library seeks to bridge this gap by converting textbooks into Braille and audiobook formats across multiple Indian languages.

The initiative will begin with Punjabi and gradually expand to cover more languages and academic disciplines. Drishti Library was officially unveiled at a recent Language AI for Accessibility symposium, marking a key step toward more inclusive education in India.

Developed at IIIT Hyderabad by researcher Krishna Tulsiyan under the guidance of Prof C.V. Jawahar and Prof Gurpreet Singh Lehal, Drishti Library is part of the Central government–led Bhashini initiative, a national mission focused on building AI-driven language technologies for all Indian languages.

Bhashini’s core mandate—to strengthen optical character recognition (OCR), speech synthesis, and other language tools for Indian languages—forms the technological backbone of Drishti. The library is built on OCR systems developed by a national consortium and aligns with Bhashini’s broader vision of creating inclusive, language-first digital public infrastructure.

“Any book in an Indian language can be scanned, proofread, converted, and finally made ready for Braille embossers or audio delivery,” said Prof Lehal.

The generated audio content is delivered through an audiobook reader application developed by the Product Lab at IIIT Hyderabad, led by Prakash Yalla and Satish Kathirisetti, along with Meghana Tatavolu, Afrin Sayed, Sairam Bonu, Akhila Vennigalla, and Vidushi Garg.

Key features of the application include adjustable playback speed, intuitive audio-based navigation controls, and other accessibility-focused interface enhancements.

Despite significant progress, challenges remain—particularly in achieving natural-sounding speech across all languages. “For some languages, we have very good text-to-speech systems. However, for Punjabi, high-quality TTS is still lacking. That will improve with time,” Prof Lehal noted.

While the initial focus was on generating content for undergraduate and postgraduate studies, the scope has since expanded to support visually impaired students preparing for competitive examinations, including UPSC, with IIIT Hyderabad researchers actively working in this direction.

India’s First Telugu LLM by August: Transforming Digital Access in Local Dialects

The Telugu language is set to take a major leap in digital accessibility with the launch of the first-ever Telugu Large Language Model (LLM). This ambitious initiative, led by the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIITH) in collaboration with Swecha, aims to make information readily available in Telugu and its regional dialects. The project is expected to release a basic version by April 2025 during the ‘AI Days’ conference, with a full-scale deployment planned by August 2025.

Empowering Telugu Speakers Through AI

Language models have revolutionized digital communication, but most AI-driven platforms are predominantly optimized for global languages like English. The development of a Telugu LLM will bridge this gap, ensuring native speakers can interact with digital platforms more naturally. This initiative aims to enhance access to knowledge in Telugu, making information retrieval, translations, and interactive digital experiences more seamless.

A Data-Driven Approach to Language Modeling

Building an effective AI model requires vast datasets, and the team behind the Telugu LLM has undertaken an extensive effort to compile one. They have digitized approximately 8 crore pages of Telugu literature and collected 4,000 hours of spoken data. This vast repository covers various dialects and linguistic nuances, ensuring the AI model can understand and generate text in multiple regional variations of Telugu.

From Folk Tales to Advanced AI

This isn’t the first attempt at creating Telugu-language AI models. Swecha and Ozonetel Communications previously collaborated to develop ‘AI Chandamama Kathalu,’ a Telugu Small Language Model (SLM) trained on folk tales. This earlier success provided a strong foundation for the upcoming Telugu LLM, demonstrating the potential of community-driven, open-source projects in advancing regional AI capabilities.

Impact on Culture, Education, and Business

The introduction of a Telugu LLM is expected to have a transformative impact across multiple domains:

Education: Students will have access to AI-powered learning tools in their native language, improving comprehension and accessibility.

Government and Public Services: Citizens can interact with online portals, legal documents, and official information in Telugu, reducing the language barrier in essential services.

Business and Customer Service: Companies can develop AI chatbots and voice assistants tailored to Telugu-speaking customers, enhancing customer engagement.

Preservation of Local Dialects: By incorporating various regional accents and linguistic styles, the model helps preserve and promote Telugu’s rich linguistic heritage.

Looking Ahead

With an expected full-scale release by August 2025, the Telugu LLM will mark a significant milestone in AI-driven language accessibility. As more regional language models emerge, India moves closer to a truly inclusive digital future, where technology caters to linguistic diversity rather than restricting it.

The success of this project could serve as a blueprint for other Indian languages, ensuring that AI technology benefits all linguistic communities. For Telugu speakers, this initiative is not just about AI—it’s about preserving culture, improving accessibility, and paving the way for future innovation in regional language computing.