🇮🇳 🤖 Reality check at India’s AI summit – Southasia Weekly #106

This week saw India launch a summit on artificial intelligence with much fanfare. Unfortunately, the news has been full of gaffes around the event - scroll below to find out why. Reading updates about the event reminds me about Sri Lanka’s own National AI expo last September, where the discussion revolved largely around the need to build up Sri Lanka’s digital infrastructure in the first place rather than on how exactly the country planned to invest in AI so it could contribute USD 1.5 billion to the economy as the government planned (no pressure, Mr President and co, we only have a looming debt crisis to contend with). On that note, I’ll take this opportunity to ask you, dear reader, to sign up to our Patrons programme and support our work, so we can bring you the real news instead of the bland PR, week-on-week. 

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This week in Himal

Ratik Ashokan translates Hindi writer Phanishwar Nath Renu’s ‘Nepali Kranti Katha’ a rare account of the 1950-1951 Nepal Revolution, the autocratic Rana regime and the first democratically elected prime minister of Nepal, B P Koirala. 

This Monday, we co-hosted a translators masterclass featuring Armory Square Prize for South Asian Literature in Translation winner Sana R Chaudhry, online now in case you missed it!