India Celebrates AI Day Highlighting Inclusive Growth

Why in the News?

India is observing AI Appreciation Day to celebrate the nation’s progress in artificial intelligence across healthcare, education, agriculture, governance, and more. The day highlights India’s evolving role as a global AI leader, driven by policy, talent, and innovation, while also emphasizing the technology’s potential to bridge gaps in linguistic diversity and promote inclusive development, respecting the country’s rich cultural identity and upholding principles of linguistic secularism and indian secularism.

AI Transforming Key Sectors in India:

● Widespread Impact: AI is revolutionising healthcare, education, agriculture, governance, and industry across both urban tech hubs and rural regions, taking into account India’s rich ethnic and racial diversity and varied regional languages. This includes the diverse language families of India, from Indo-Aryan languages like urdu language to Dravidian languages, reflecting the nation’s linguistic diversity and the heritage of linguistic states.

● AI for Inclusion: Government initiatives focus on using AI not just for economic growth, but also for equity and social good, aiming to foster social harmony, religious tolerance, and mutual respect among diverse linguistic groups, including tribal communities. This approach recognizes the cultural significance of language in shaping India’s composite culture and adheres to the constitutional mandate for inclusive development.

● Digital Push: The Digital India mission (2015) and NITI Aayog’s National AI Strategy (2018) accelerated AI’s public adoption, enhancing digital services and digital presence across the country. These initiatives also support the development of multilingual databases to cater to India’s linguistic diversity, as measured by the linguistic diversity index, and address potential linguistic conflicts.

● Use Cases: AI is being applied in traffic control, public service delivery, farming solutions, and remote healthcare diagnostics, often leveraging local languages like sindhi language and traditional knowledge to improve accessibility. The tourism industry and creative industries are also benefiting from AI-driven innovations that respect and promote cultural identity, in line with Article 29 of the Indian Constitution which protects minorities’ right to conserve their distinct language, script, or culture.

Government Efforts and Global Collaborations:

● Skill Development: Programmes like Skill India AI Portal, National AI Skilling Programme, and AI Youth Bootcamp are providing hands-on training and certifications, focusing on problem-solving skills and cognitive development. The DIKSHA portal and SWAYAM MOOCs are examples of AI-enhanced educational platforms that cater to diverse linguistic needs, embodying the spirit of the National Translation Mission.

● Vocational Integration: AI tools are being used in traditional industries to improve productivity via vocational centres, creating new employment opportunities and preserving cultural heritage. This includes efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages through AI-powered language preservation initiatives, addressing concerns raised by historical dravidian movements about language preservation.

● Research & Partnerships: The government supports AI through funding, research centres, and academic-industry linkages, promoting technical education and cultural integration in the field. These efforts align with India’s language policy, which emphasizes the importance of language training in the AI era, as recommended by the JVP Committee and Fazl Ali Commission in their historical reviews of language policies.

● Tech Collaborations: Ties with Google, Microsoft, and IBM help India stay aligned with global AI advancements while maintaining a focus on solutions tailored to India’s linguistic and cultural context. These collaborations often involve UNESCO initiatives, further solidifying India’s position on the global AI stage and promoting interpretation services to bridge language gaps.

Understanding India’s AI Journey :

● Beginnings: India’s AI work began in the 1960s with early computer science research.

● Key Milestones:

○ 1986: Launch of Knowledge-Based Computer Systems Project.

○ 1990s: C-DAC’s supercomputing and AI innovation.

○ 2000s: IT majors like TCS, Infosys, Wipro began AI investment.

● Current Status: India is a global AI hub with strengths in software talent and diverse data ecosystems, reflecting the country’s linguistic diversity and various language families.

● Vision: India’s AI for All strategy aims for responsible, ethical, and inclusive AI deployment, respecting the nation’s composite culture and promoting inclusive development across all linguistic communities, in line with state policy and constitutional provisions that safeguard freedom of conscience.

This AI Appreciation Day serves as a reminder of India’s commitment to harnessing artificial intelligence for the benefit of its diverse population, bridging linguistic and cultural gaps, and driving inclusive growth across all sectors of society. By leveraging AI to address challenges in language preservation, cultural expression, and economic development, India is paving the way for a technologically advanced future that honors its rich cultural heritage and linguistic diversity, while upholding the principles of linguistic secularism and fostering an environment of religious tolerance and mutual respect among all communities.