What is ASMITA Project?

About ASMITA Project:

• ASMITA (Augmenting Study Materials in Indian Languages through Translation and Academic Writing) is an initiative to develop 22,000 books in Indian languages in the next five years.
• It is a collaborative effort of the UGC and the Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti, a high-powered committee under the Ministry of Education.
• The primary objective of this initiative is to promote and integrate Indian languages more deeply into the education system, thereby enriching the learning experience and making it more inclusive.
• This project is seen as part of a broader strategy to enhance the accessibility and quality of educational materials across various Indian languages.
• Thirteen nodal universities have been identified to lead the project, along with member universities from various regions.
• The UGC has also created a standard operating procedure (SOP) for the book-writing process in each assigned language.
  • The SOP includes the identification of nodal officers, authors, allocation of title, subject, and programme, writing and editing, submission of the manuscript, review and plagiarism check, finalisation, designing, proofreading and e-publication.

Other Initiatives Launched:

• The Ministry of Education also launched the "Bahubhasha Shabdakosh", a single-pointreference for all the words in all Indian languages and their meanings.
• This initiative will be developed by the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) in collaboration with the Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti.

This Shabdakosh will help in using Bharatiya words, phrases, and sentences for various new-age domains like IT, industry, research, and education.

Q1: What is the University Grants Commission (UGC)?

The University Grants Commission (UGC) came into existence on 28th December, 1953 and became a statutory Organization of the Government of India by an Act of Parliament in 1956, for the coordination, determination and maintenance of standards of teaching, examination and research in university education.

Source: Centre, UGC launch 'ASMITA' project to produce 22,000 books in Indian languages | DETAILS