Subordinate offices under Bureau of Language Education

Central Hindi Directorate

The Central Hindi Directorate was established on March 1, 1960, by Government of India under the then Ministry of Education (now Ministry of Human Resource Development), Department of Higher Education to promote and propagate Hindi as well as to develop it as a link language throughout India in pursuance of Article 351 of the Constitution of India. The Headquarters of the Central Hindi Directorate is located at New Delhi. Its regional offices are located at Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Guwahati. Since its inception, the Directorate has been implementing a number of schemes for the promotion and development of Hindi.

The Directorate has been implementing a number of schemes as follows :-

• Hindi for Government Servants - Central Hindi Directorate has been conducting a number of courses such as Certificate Course in Hindi, Diploma Course in Hindi, Advance Diploma Course and Course Prabodh, Praveen and Pragya for Govt. Servants.
• Scheme of publication of monolingual/bilingual, trilingual and multilingual dictionaries.
• Correspondence courses
• Awards to Hindi writers
• Extension services and programmes,
• Hindi teaching and Promotion through Audio cassettes.
• Grants to voluntary organisations for the propagation of Hindi including scheme of assistance for publication/purchase of books.
• Purchase of Hindi books for free distribution.

For more details, click here: http://www.chdpublication.mhrd.gov.in

Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology

The Commission for Scientific & Technical Terminology (CSTT) was set up on December 21, 1960 by a resolution of Government of India under the proviso to Clause (4) of Article 344 of the Constitution with the objective to evolve and define scientific and technical terms in Hindi and all Indian languages; publish glossaries, definitional dictionaries, encyclopedia.; to see that the evolved terms and their definitions reach the students, teachers, scholars, scientists, officers etc., to ensure proper usage/ necessary updating/ correction/ improvement on the work done (through workshops/ seminars/ orientation programmes) by obtaining useful feedback; to coordinate with all States to ensure uniformity of terminology in Hindi and other Indian languages.

The Commission carries out the following functions :-

• Preparation and Publication of Bilingual and Trilingual Glossaries involving English/Hindi and other Indian Languages.
• Preparation and Publication of National Terminology.
• Identification and Publication of School Level Terminology and Departmental Glossaries.
• Identification of Pan Indian Terms.
• Preparation of Definitional Dictionaries and Encyclopedias.
• Preparation of University level textbooks, monographs and journals.
• Grant-in-Aid to Grant Academies, Textbook Boards and University Cells for University level books in regional languages.
• Propagation, expansion and critical review of terms coined and defined through training/orientation programmes, workshops, seminars etc.
• Free distribution of Publications.
• Providing necessary terminology to the National Translation Mission.

For more details, click here: http://www.csttpublication.mhrd.gov.in

Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore

The Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) at Mysore, a subordinate office of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, was set up in 1969 to help in evolving and implementing the language policy of Government of India and to coordinate the development of Indian Languages by conducting research in the areas of language analysis, language pedagogy, language technology and language use in the society. The Institute promotes Indian languages through several comprehensive schemes. For promotion of its objectives, CIIL organises a number of programmes.

Main Schemes and Programmes:-

Development of Indian Languages

The Scheme seeks to develop Indian languages through research, development of human resource and the production of materials in modern Indian languages, including tribal/ minor/ minority languages.

Regional Language Centres (RLC)

There Regional Language Centres located at Bhubaneswar, Pune, Mysore, Patiala, Guwahati, Solan and Lucknow work for the implementation of the three-language formula of the Government and preparation of instructional materials. The RLCs conduct teacher-training programmes wherein the secondary school teachers deputed by States and Union Territories are trained in languages other than their mother tongue.

Grant in Aid Scheme:

Under Grant in aid scheme, CIIL provides financial assistance to individuals and voluntary organizations by supporting Bulk Purchase, Publication of manuscripts and Little Magazine in Indian Languages (other than Hindi, Urdu, Sindhi, Sanskrit and English) including tribal languages.

National Testing Service

National Testing Service (NTS) has been approved by Ministry of Human Resource Development during the financial year 2006-07 and is being implemented by Center of Testing and Evaluation (CT & E) under Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore. Objectives of NTS are as under:-

• Development of a comprehensive package for Indian languages consisting of the fundamentals of testing and evaluation, to begin with, in three Indian languages ie. Hindi, Urdu and Tamil;
• Setting up of norms and standards for Inter language comparability at the levels of syllabi;
• To make available at least one set of standardized tests at different levels of education such as primary, secondary, Hr. Secondary, graduate, post graduate and research (like TOEFL and GRE) in at least one major Indian language;
• Academic and financial assistance for developing graded syllabi and mastery in personality test in a more scientific way, in each level of education in different languages;
• Developing teaching modules on testing and evaluation in at least one major Indian language;
• Collecting and documenting the required data covering teachers, learners and specialized work force;
• To create a band of systematically trained manpower resource with about 2,000 individuals at Pre University, Graduate and post graduate levels.

The immediate beneficiaries of NTS will include the agencies like the University Grants Commission, Union Public Service Commission, Staff Selection Commission, etc., at the national level and such institutions at the state level, Central/ State Boards of Education, Universities/Colleges/Schools, teachers and learners of languages etc.

Linguistic Data Consortium on Indian Languages (LDC-IL)

Linguistic Data Consortium for Indian Languages (LDC-IL), a Central Sector scheme, is being implemented by Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore from financial year 2007-08.

The LDC-IL initiative is driven by a consortium of lead institutions including the CIIL-Mysore, IISc-Bangalore, IIT-Mumbai, IIT-Madras and IIIT-Hyderabad, and has members from among all Institutions and agencies as well as industries interested in Indian languages technology.

The Language Consortium aims to create and manage large Indian languages databases, it will also provide a forum for researchers in India and other countries on working on Indian languages for publishing and building products for language technology applications, translation tools etc The Consortium will address the need to enhance the machine-readable language data in Hindi and other Indian languages on a large scale. LDC-IL plans to generates income by charging subscription fees so as to make the project self-sufficient. LDC-IL helps the researchers and developers worldwide in the field of developing teat and speech corpora in Indian Languages for language technology applications and National Language Proficiency.

National Translation Mission

On the basis of recommendations of National Knowledge Commission, MoE has set up National Translation Mission (NTM) with the main objective of functioning as a clearing house for all translation activities, both theoretical and practical, in as many Indian Languages as possible; to provide links between users of translated materials at different levels and in different activities to the public and private agencies; to prioritise the translations of pedagogic materials at all levels (including primary onwards to tertiary education ) specifically in natural and social sciences; to project Indian Languages and literatures in this region and abroad through high quality translation.

NTM is being implemented by Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore as a nodal organization for operation of the Scheme. A Project Approval Committee (PAC) of NTM has been constituted as an apex decision making body vide orders dated 27.10.2008. It would be advising the Government of India in matters pertaining to the translation of languages and work as a clearing house for all translation activities. It would also provide links between users of translated materials. In the PAC experts have been drawn from University/depts dealing with languages and translation, representatives of Booksellers and Publishers Guild, specialists in Translation from private organizations/corporate houses etc.

The first meeting of PAC of NTM was held in December 2008 in New Delhi in which focus was on prioritising the discipline and knowledge text to be translated. There is no significant progress in this regard, however knowledge texts in 14 disciplines are being firmed up for taking up for translation. A searchable database for those who want to register themselves as translators for NTM assignments was developed and integrated with NTM website. Profiles of over 2200 translators have been added to this database.

For more details, click here: www.ciil.org