On Panel ‘Are Translators Redundant?’, translator and author Nishat Zaidi: “Would you then ask will literature become redundant, will authors become redundant. The assumption is that translation is a secondary job, translators reproduce, authors produce and the assumption is that reproductive labor is always secondary to productive labor. I see translators as co-producers of knowledge and then AI can never take that job”. Join us at Bhashavaad 3.0 at the India International Centre this weekend.

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(1/3) When translator Banani Chakravarty started translating Gunabhiram Barua’s 1880 biography of Ananda Ram Dhekial Phookan, she encountered something surprising: many phrases sounded as if they’d been thought in English and then translated into Assamese. Gunabhiram knew English, the biography was among the first modern nonfiction prose in Assamese and much of the source material was from Ananda Ram’s personal notebooks, perhaps written in English. With the understanding, her whole approach shifted. Banani was not translating from Assamese to English, but trying to recall what Gunabhiram had meant by the English words he had in mind. Selections from 'Being Modern: A Biography of Ananda Ram Dhekial Phookan' by Gunabhiram Barua, translated from Assamese by Banani Chakravarty (Penguin, 2025). @TranslationAtAU

India speaks in hundreds of languages, and every translation bridges us. We are inviting undergraduate students from Delhi-NCR to be part of the Bhashavaad Edit-a-thon 2026, a hands-on session to build India's growing database of translations (bhashavaad.in). Come celebrate India's multilingual heritage with us. Scan the QR or click the link below to access the guidelines and register by July 31st. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F… @TranslationAtAU

(1/4) Between 2001 and 2009, eleven Indian language books were translated into Swedish, not from the original languages, but through English, French, and German. None of the Swedish translators knew Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, or Hindi. And yet the series, Indiska Biblioteket, did something most publishers avoid: it disclosed the indirectness openly and made the case for it. Cecilia Alvstad's research asks the question worth sitting with: what is lost if we never translate a given text at all? What do you think: should indirect translations be treated as compromises, or as bridges?

(1/3) He couldn't afford college fees and sold an early novel for 200 rupees, yet Saratchandra Chattopadhyay became one of the most widely read writers in Indian literary history. His stories travelled from Bengali into a dozen languages and found new life on stage and screen through works like Devdas and Parineeta. Translation carried his words across worlds long before cinema did. On his 150th birth anniversary, selections from Saratchandra Chattopadhyay: Selected Stories, translated by Anchita Ghatak (An Ashoka Centre for Translation Series)

(1/2) Before he reformed India's economy, PV Narasimha Rao was already building bridges — between languages, literatures, and peoples. A polyglot who spoke 13+ languages. A translator who carried novels across linguistic borders. A lifelong learner who picked up Spanish at JNU while serving as an MP. Most people know him for 1991. We want you to know the rest. This is our new series, India in Translation — where we will bring you stories of the people and journeys that have connected India's many languages. Stay tuned.