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CDAC's translation tool for Smithsonian collection

The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing's 'machine assisted translation tool', dubbed Mantra, has found a place in the prestigious Smithsonian Institution's permanent collection of innovations.

T O D A Y

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Mantra impressed Intel CEO Dr Craig Barrett when he was in India and he nominated the computer-aided translation package for the 1999 Computerworld Smithsonian Innovation Award and Research Collection, slated for April 11 and 12 in Washington.

Intel has also expressed interest in presenting Mantra as part of its electronic business offer soon, said Dr Hemant Darbari, coordinator of the Applied Artificial Intelligence Group at CDAC.

Dr Darbari said Mantra would become a part of the Smithsonian Institution's permanent research collection and a team from CDAC will present the audio-visual at Washington.

Mantra helps in translating English sentences in the administrative domain into Hindi. The translation package developed by CDAC is capable of taking inputs from standard word-processing / DTP packages.

It analyses natural language text of English and translates it to Hindi.

The domain is being expanded to include administrative correspondence under the 'Computer Assisted Translation System for Administrative Purposes' project sponsored by the home ministry's department of official languages.

Mantra, in combination with the recently launched iLeap, an Indian language Internet ready email processing system and word-processor, will enable the user to input the text in English and transfer the translated Hindi text to the remote user on the Internet.

CDAC is in talks with Systran to expand the capability of the Mantra concept. Systran has a French-to-English machine translation package. "With an interface with Mantra, we can have a French to Hindi package,'' said Dr Darbari.

- Compiled from the Indian media

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