A BENCHMARK CREATED FOR THE INDIAN TRANSLATOR COMMUNITY

[Ravi_Kumar]

NATIONAL CONFERENCE CONCLUDES: A BENCHMARK CREATED FOR THE INDIAN
TRANSLATOR COMMUNITY
April 19, 2009 , ITAINDIA Secretariat, New Delhi
The 1st National Conference on "Language and Translation Industry of
India: Opportunities & Challenges" jointly organized by the Indian
Translators Association and Linguaindia Foundation successfully
concluded on April 18, 2009 creating a benchmark for the language and
translator community of India.
The warm-up activity to the conference began on April 16, 2009 with
the pre-conference workshop dedicated to Quality Standards,
Terminology Management, Professional Practices and CAT Tools, hosted
by Instituto Cervantes, New Delhi. The workshop was inaugurated by His
Excellency Miguel Angel Ramirez Ramos, Ambassador of Cuba in India who
emphasized the need to create awareness about quality standards,
terminology management, professional practices and CAT tools in
translation. The Cuban Ambassador also took the opportunity to explain
about the initiatives of Cuban government in promoting language and
translation activities in his country and expressed his desire to
intensify co-operation with India in these areas in order to further
open gateways to cultural exchange between both countries.
The workshop that witnessed presence of more than 150 participants was
chaired by Ms. Ana Isabel Reguillo, Academic Head of Instituto
Cervantes in New Delhi who explained about the mission of Instituto
Cervantes in promoting quality education in Spanish language and
culture studies in India and throughout the globe. Further, the
workshop included some highly interactive sessions by experts of
international repute including Prof. Roger T. Bell (University of
Westminster, UK) who actually brought the otherwise hot and dull
afternoon alive through his sessions on Professional Practices in
Translation. The sessions were then continued by experts from Austria
that included Dr. Gabriele Sauberer (TERMNET), who shared her
knowledge on Terminology Management and Quality Standards in
Translation; Dr. Peter Jonas (LICS) explained in detail about the EN
15038 standard; Ms. Anja Drame (INFOTERM) dealt with standardization
in terminology. The workshop ended with an exclusive session on CAT
tools by Conference Convenor Mr. Ravi Kumar who emphasized the need to
integrate with the translation technology. This was followed by a
demonstration of a newly developed CAT tool called "Heartsome": a new
generation cost effective CAT tool that fully supports Indian
languages.
The National conference that received Institutional support from the
Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore; Instituto
Cervantes, New Delhi and the International Federation of Translators
(FIT), Montreal began on April 17, 2009 and witnessed presence of more
than 200 delegates that included academicians, bureaucrats, corporate
representatives, translators, language professionals and agency
owners. The conference began with a lamp-lighting ceremony carried out
by the Chief Guest, Prof. Ramadhikari Kumar, Rector, Jawaharlal Nehru
University who applauded the efforts of the Convenor, Mr. Ravi Kumar
and his team in creating such a vibrant, visible and forceful platform
as the Indian Translators Association which makes it possible for
members of the language and translators community to share knowledge
and views on various aspects of translation. Prof. Ramadhikari Kumar
who has been actively involved in teaching translation and
interpreting in Jawaharlal Nehru University, described to the learned
audience the opportunities that existed in the field of translation.
He further emphasized the need for joining hands to create well
trained human resources and inculcate quality consciousness and
professional practices in them if Translation Industry of India was to
be harnessed properly. The inaugural address was delivered by Special
Guest, Prof. Sankar Basu, Dean, School of Language, Literature and
Culture Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Prof. Basu, who is also
the recipient of the Order of Friendship Award (the highest award
conferred by the Russian Government), gave an insight into the present
scenario of the Translation Industry in India. He further expressed
his happiness over the initiatives taken by Linguaindia Foundation and
Indian Translators Association in uniting academics, translators and
practitioners and hoped that, in future, such events would be
organized more frequently and that level of engagement with Indian
Translators Association from the academic side would increase. During
the inaugural session, the guest of honour Prof. Mahendra Benipuri
shared his thoughts and memories on the writings of his father the
late Rambriksh Benipuri, a great Hindi writer and one of the founders
of the Socialist Movement in India.
The co-organizer of the National Conference, Linguaindia Foundation,
for the first time initiated and conferred the Rambriksh Benipuri
Awards in the national and international categories. The honour in the
national category was for Prof. R.P. Bhatnagar (Ex-Professor and
Chairman, Department of English, University of Rajasthan) a well known
academic, writer, translator and pioneer in translation studies in
India. The award in the international category was given to Prof.
Roger T. Bell (ex-Professor of Linguistics at University of
Westminster, UK and Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institute of
Linguistics, London) a pioneer of Translation Theory and Practice. The
award giving ceremony was followed by an English Translation reading
of "Raziya" a short-story written by Sh. Rambriksh Benipuri, by Mrs.
Swati Das, Head of Department, Delhi Public School. The translation as
well as the reading was done in such a way that the message of the
writer Rambriksh Benipuri was transmitted to the audience with full
emotion that touched most of those present in the IIFT auditorium,
where the conference was being held.
The National Conference also witnessed the presence of Prof. Dr. P.P.
Giridhar, Head, National Translation Mission, Central Institute of
Indian Languages, Govt. of India who presented the Showcase of the
National Translation Mission and highlighted initiatives that the
Government of India has taken to promote translation activities in the
country. Further, the audience had the chance to listen to the views
of Mr. N.L. Lakhanpal (IAS), ex-Director General - Foreign Trade and
the Chief of ZeitGeist-Advisorate who gave an eye opening talk on
"Asia in the context of Globalization" and stressed the need for
quality translation that will help India/Asia to effectively adapt to
the globalization process. This session was further enriched by a talk
given by Ms. Marielle Morin, Director of French Information Resource
Centre (FIRC), Embassy of France who described the activities of FIRC
in promoting translation activities in India especially in the context
of the translation of literary books from French to Indian languages
and vice-versa.
The second day of the National Conference started with a special
interactive session on Machine Translation with talks by experts
including Dr. V.N. Shukla, Director, Special Applications, C-DAC,
Noida; Dr. Vijay K Malhotra, Computational Linguistics expert; Mr.
Ravi Kumar, President Indian Translators Association and Managing
Director, Allied Modlingua Services Pvt. Ltd. and Dr. P.P. Giridhar,
Head-National Translation Mission. After very fruitful discussions,
all the panelists agreed on the need to develop indigenous technology
and design memory-based affordable CAT tools to empower Indian
translators and language professionals and add value to the growth
process of the Indian Translation Industry.
In another session, Mr. Uma Shankar B.R., Deputy General Manager-
Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions (RBEI) shared
experience of his company which supports the translation requirements
of its clients including its parent company Robert Bosch GmbH, the
world´s leading global supplier of technology services. Mr. Shankar´s
presentation addressed the challenges of serving a large clientele,
with an unpredictable order inflow and managing a large team of in-
house translators and meeting demands of customers without
compromising on the quality as well as turn around and yet ensuring
continuous workflow to its in-house team. His experience was well
received as an effective model of translation project management
applicable to small and medium as well as large scale service
providers.
The conference also witnessed dedicated panel discussion on
interpreting services in India chaired by Prof. S.P. Ganguly and Co-
ordinated by Prof. Anil Dhingra who emphasized the need for setting up
an Interpreting School that imparts exclusive training in Simultaneous
and Consecutive Interpretation.
In addition, the conference witnessed the presence of experts of
international repute like Prof. Manju Dhariwal, LN Mittal Institute
of Information Technology, Jaipur (Translation for propagation of
Culture and Values: A story from Buddha´s life); Prof. Om Gupta, Dean
Jagannath International Management School, New Delhi (Translation for
Whom: Linguist of the original language or reader in the foreign
language); Prof. S.M. Mishra, Deputy Director, Indian Council for
Historical Research, New Delhi (Challenges of Language and Translation
of Neighborhood: Immediate and Global); Prof. Jeevaratnam Gurusamy,
Avinashilingam University for Women, Coimbtore (Translation as a form
of cross- cultural communication); Prof. Hem Chandra Pande, Ex-Dean,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (Online English-Hindi-English
Dictionaries as CAT Tool: an assessment); Prof. Sanjay Singh Baghel,
ARSD College, University of Delhi (Indian Advertising Industry and
Hindi Advertisement); Prof. Vashini Sharma, Central Institute of
Hindi, Agra (Cross-Cultural Communication and Transcreation); Mr. L.N.
Baijal, Founder, True Translations Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai (Transcreation in
Advertising); Mr. Shreyas Munshi, Researcher in Linguistics, Mumbai
(Innovative Phonetic Symbols and Transliteration); Mr. C.M. Rawal,
Vice-President, ITAINDIA (Transcreation, Transliteration, Terminology,
Tools & Techniques: Coordination); Dr. Tulika Chandra, Asia - Pacific
Institute of Management, New Delhi (Application of Best Suited
Teaching Methodologies in Translation: Especially Indian Folk Tales);
Mr. Samrat Yadav, CEO, Total Internet Solutions, New Delhi (Automate
internationalization of web applications); Mr. Hemanga Dutta, Research
Scholar, JNU, New Delhi (Literary translation and its limitations in
the wider spectrum of cross-cultural communications).
It is important to note that the conference witnessed presence of
young entrepreneurs like Mr. Arun Kumar, Founder of Transwelt -
Terminology Made Easy and a considerable number of translators and
academics coming from different parts of India including the remote
north east. For participants like Mr. Lochan Makhija, Guwahati; Mr.
Himanshu Sharma, Sonepat; Mr. Mohd. Shamsuddin, Shantiniketan; Mr.
Ankush Chauhan, Shimla; Ms. Latha Narayanan, Bangalore; Ms. Amita, New
Delhi; Mr. Vinit Sharma, Udaipur; Mr. Maheshwar Ghankot, Secunderabad;
Mr. Soumick Bagchi, Gwalior; Ms. R. Sudha, Madurai; Ms. Amrutha Joshi,
Pune; and Mr. Ranjit Singh Padda, Gurdaspur, the conference proved to
be an eye opener as it gave an opportunity to learn many new things
that are generally not covered in the academic curriculum.
The conference ended with a thanksgiving note by the Convenor Mr. Ravi
Kumar, Founder President of Indian Translators Association and Elected
Council member of International Federation of Translators, who
expressed his sincere thanks to all participants, speakers and
sponsors and members of the organizing committee for having made this
conference a grand success. Keeping in consideration the overwhelming
support from Translators Community of India, Mr. Kumar also assured to
the audience that focused conferences at regional level will also be
initiated by the Indian Translators Association in due course of time
and more efforts will be made to reach a larger audience. At the end,
Mr. Kumar extended his special thanks to ITAINDIA Patron, Mr. R.
Viswanathan (currently, Ambassador of India to Argentina, Uruguay and
Paraguay) who has been a constant source of inspiration for Mr. Ravi
Kumar and his team since 2005 when the Indian Translators Association
was still in the formative stages. Mr. Kumar also took the opportunity
to express his gratitude to CIIL-Mysore; TERMNET- Austria; FIT-
Montreal; Instituto Cervantes-New Delhi; RBEI-Bangalore; ZeitGeist-New
Delhi; Heartsome-Singapore; LinguaIndia Foundation-New Delhi and
Transwelt- Bangalore for having extended their active support to the
conference.

National Conference 2009
Secretariat
Indian Translators Association
C/o Allied Modlingua Services Pvt. Ltd
K-5/B, Lower Ground Floor, Kalkaji, New Delhi -110019
Tel.: +91 11 26291676, Fax: 011 - 41675530 E-mail: in...@itaindia.org
Web: www.itaindia.org

Organizing committee members: Ravi Kumar (Convenor); Ms. Vrunda
(+91-9890860678); Mr. Selvan (+91-9970012590); Mr. C.M. Rawal
(+91-9818450779); Mr. Shankar (+ 91-9891704488)