New Delhi: The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) on Wednesday launched the second edition of its flagship scheme AICTE-VAANI, aimed at promoting Indian languages in technical education. Under the scheme, the technical education regulator will provide ₹4 crore for 200 conferences, seminars, and workshops in emerging technical fields in 22 regional languages this year.
AICTE chairperson Prof TG Sitharam in a statement said that VAANI (Vibrant Advocacy for Advancement and Nurturing of Indian Languages) scheme seeks to establish a robust knowledge base in regional languages to ensure that the latest technological advancements are accessible in local languages.
“The scheme will encourage the publication of research papers in regional languages. The initiative will foster greater collaboration between academic institutions and industries,” he added.
The first edition of AICTE-VAANI was launched on March 11, 2024. In the second edition, the number of regional languages for conference organizations has been expanded from 12 to 22 languages, and the thrust areas for discussions have increased to 16 emerging fields from 12 fields.
AICTE vice chairman Dr Abhay Jere said that critical thinking and problem-solving should be the primary focus, irrespective of the language used. He also suggested creating a comprehensive repository of all conferences for future reference and research purposes.
AICTE-VAANI 2025 will provide financial support of ₹2 lakh each for 200 conferences totaling ₹4 crore annually. The events spanning 2 to 3 days must be organised in 22 regional languages including Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu, the AICTE said.
The events such as conferences, seminars, and workshops should be organised in 16 emerging technical fields such as quantum technology, hydrogen energy, space and defense, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data science, agrotech, and food processing, cybersecurity
The technical education regulator will open the online applications for AICTE-approved institutions from March 25 to April 24, through the AICTE-ATAL portal at https://www.aicte-india.org/atal. Institutions will be selected based on AICTE’s criteria, ensuring quality and relevance in organising conferences, seminars, or workshops.
Nilanjana Dutta Roy, associate professor at Techno International New Town (TINT), an engineering college in Kolkata said, “Through AICTE-VAANI, the AICTE is trying to promote technical education in regional languages by providing financial assistance of ₹2 lakh to colleges. In January this year, we organised a 2-day workshop on integrating supercomputing with AI and quantum computing in the Bengali language. We held discussions and conducted workshops in Bengali language with financial support from AICTE.”