The Union Law Ministry in India is on a mission to reduce its dependence on state governments when it comes to the translation of Central legislation into Indian languages. To achieve this, the ministry is working on developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) that can handle the task. While the trial of AI for law translation conducted recently was only 40% successful, officials are confident that with the help of the National Informatics Centre, the AI can be trained to provide better results by December.
Currently, the ministry relies on state governments to send them translations, but this process can be time-consuming and not always efficient. By developing AI translation capabilities, the ministry hopes to streamline the translation process and make it more accurate. Senior officials of the ministry have revealed that the AI is being trained using a legal glossary in Hindi and other Indian languages. Once ready, the AI will be used to directly translate laws into different Indian languages.
“We are expecting it to be ready by the end of the year, after which we can start using the AI to translate laws. Right now, we are dependent on the state governments to send us the translations,” said a senior official.
The translation efforts cover a wide range of languages, but only fourteen languages are likely to be used for translations, including Bengali, Tamil, Gujarati, Urdu, Punjabi, and Marathi. These languages have been selected based on their usage in courts. The Indian Constitution’s Eighth Schedule lists a total of twenty-two official Indian languages.
While the initial trials of the AI translation did not yield satisfactory results, officials are optimistic that as more data is fed into the software, the accuracy and success rate of the translations will improve. The Ministry of Law has been diligently preparing the legal glossary in Hindi and other Indian languages to ensure that the AI is well-equipped to handle legal terminology.
This initiative is particularly relevant now as three new criminal laws came into effect on July 1. However, their official translations into Indian languages are still pending notification. State governments were requested in March to translate the laws and submit them to the ministry for review, a process expected to take around six months.
It’s worth mentioning that the Supreme Court of India has also been leveraging AI to translate its judgments. Since the project’s inception in 2019, over 31,000 judgments have been translated into sixteen languages using AI translation tools. This highlights the growing importance of AI in the legal field and its potential to simplify complex processes.
In conclusion, the Union Law Ministry in India is spearheading the development of AI for the translation of Central legislation into various Indian languages. By training the AI using a legal glossary in Hindi and other languages, officials believe they can reduce reliance on state governments and simplify the translation process. While initial trials showed room for improvement, the ministry is confident that the AI will be ready for use by December, potentially revolutionizing the translation of legislation in India.
Use the share button below if you liked it.