NICL AO admit card 2025 released; exams on July 20
The exam will be conducted on July 20 for a duration of 60 minutes. The paper will consist of 100 questions of 100 marks. The questions paper will be bilingual i.e., Hindi and English except for the English subject.
The recruitment drive aims to fill 266 vacancies.
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The Hindu
an hour ago
- The Hindu
Andhra Pradesh CM Naidu defends Hindi in schools, says P.V. Narasimha Rao, a scholar in 17 languages, is an example
Amid the ongoing row over alleged imposition of Hindi in schools through the National Education Policy (NEP), Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has defended the Union government's proposal, saying that the former Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, has become a famed scholar by learning 17 languages. 'P.V. Narasimha Rao was a scholar, fluent in 17 language. Now, we are talking why should we learn Hindi. Narasimha Rao had become a great man as he not only learnt Hindi but other languages too,' Mr. Naidu said while delivering the sixth of the PMs' lecture series on the topic, 'The life and legacy of P.V. Narasimha Rao', at the Prime Ministers' Museum and Library, in New Delhi on Tuesday. Deputy Chief Minister K. Pawan Kalyan and HRD Minister N. Lokesh had already unequivocally supported promoting Hindi as a language. Mr. Pawan Kalyan's Jana Sena Party and Mr. Naidu-led TDP are partners in the NDA from South India. Recalling Narasimha Rao's contribution in nation-building, Mr. Naidu, 'I had a very good equation with him and knew him very well. The Telugu community is proud of him. He was a true 'Telugu Bidda' who had reshaped the destiny of our great nation,' Mr. Naidu observed. Speaking about the pre-1991 economic scenario, Mr. Naidu outlined how the country had been shackled under the 'License Raj', with growth stagnating at 3-4%. By 1991, India was saddled in an unprecedented economic crisis, and foreign reserves dropped dangerously low, he said. Comparing Narasimha Rao's strategic courage to that of Deng Xiaoping of China, who initiated China's reforms in 1978, Mr. Naidu said the former Prime Minister had recognised crisis as an opportunity and launched the historic 1991 economic reforms, decisively transforming India's future. 'We are all here today enjoying the fruits of the reforms he initiated,' Mr. Naidu asserted. Praising the political acumen of Narasimha Rao, the Chief Minister said, despite leading a minority government, he had achieved the near-impossible by forging consensus among Socialists, Communists, and Capitalists alike. Narasimha Rao had played a key role in ending the License Raj and welcoming foreign investment, and setting the stage for India's IT revolution in the mid-1990s. 'Thanks to his reforms, India overcame its balance of payments crisis, opened up its economy, and set the stage for future growth,' Mr. Naidu said. He credited Narasimha Rao with the IT boom that was witnessed after the economic liberalisation. The Chief Minister also recalled his association with the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, recognising his vision in building India's infrastructure and telecom backbone. Further, Mr. Naidu described 2014 as a turning point, and credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi with ushering in a new era of bold, decisive leadership. 'Under Mr. Modi's stewardship, India rose from the 11th to the 4th largest economy, with a clear trajectory to become the 3rd largest by 2028,' Mr. Naidu emphasised. 'Mr. Modi is as a leader who instills national pride, global respect, and strong foreign relations,' he said. Drawing comparisons to other economies, he remarked that 'the goal is not just to grow fast, but to grow fairly, where every citizen, every region, and every sector shares fruits of progress, rightly called Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas.' He also noted that according to the World Bank, India was among the top four most income-equal countries, lifting over 17.1 crore Indians out of poverty in the last decade. 'Public policy must serve the people. For it to work effectively, we need stable governments and visionary leaders,' Mr. Naidu asserted. He highlighted India's global recognition in space, healthcare, entrepreneurship, and the rise of Indian billionaires as symbols of this transformation. Later, Mr. Naidu took questions from the audience during which he elaborated his vision for Andhra Pradesh, particularly in the technology sector. He said that the Quantum Valley initiative was in line with the National Quantum Mission, aiming to create India's answer to Silicon Valley. He highlighted curriculum reforms, youth leadership in his party, and a conscious effort to bring young, educated MLAs into governance. On agriculture, he said, 'We must handhold agriculture as our traditional occupations evolve.' On equitable wealth distribution, he emphasised the need to align the aspirations of farmers with broader policy reforms. Mr. Naidu added, 'I am 100% confident that by 2047, India will be the No. 1 country in the world. When we celebrate 100 years of Independence, Indians will lead the world.' The Chief Minister felicitated the former Prime Minister's son, P.V. Prabhakar Rao, and grandson N.V. Subhash on the occasion.
Mint
an hour ago
- Mint
Beyond text: Why voice is emerging as India's next frontier for AI interaction
Voice is fast becoming the defining layer of human-AI interaction in India, despite being the most challenging to train. Artificial intelligence (AI) startups are sharpening their focus on sculpting this intgeraction with design, authentic emotion, and intent. Yet, India presents a unique challenge: the sheer diversity of its accents, languages, and tonalities. Unlike text, which is relatively uniform, spoken language is richly-layered—with cultural nuances, colloquialisms and emotion. Startups building voice-first AI models are now doubling down on one thing above all else: the depth and diversity of datasets. Why voice is emerging as the frontline interface In India, where oral tradition plays a pivotal role in communication, voice isn't just a convenience—it's a necessity. 'We're not an English-first or even a text-first country. Even when we type in Hindi, we often use the English script instead of Devanagari. That's exactly why we need to build voice-first models—because oral tradition plays such a vital role in our culture," said Abhishek Upperwal, chief executive officer (CEO) of Soket AI Labs. Voice is also proving critical for customer service and accessibility. 'Voice plays a crucial role in bridging accessibility gaps, particularly for users with disabilities," said Mahesh Makhija, leader, technology consulting, at EY. 'Many customers even prefer voicing complaints over typing, simply because talking feels more direct and human. Moreover, voice is far more frictionless than navigating mobile apps or interfaces—especially for users who are digitally-illiterate, older, or not fluent in English," said Makhija, adding that 'communicating in vernacular languages opens access to the next half a billion consumers, which is a major focus for enterprises." Startups like are already deploying voice systems across banking and financial services to streamline customer support, assist with loan applications, and eliminate virtual queues. 'The best way to reach people—regardless of literacy levels or demographics—is through voice in the local language, so it's very important to capture the tonality of the conversations," said Ganesh Gopalan, CEO of The hunt for rich, real-world data As of mid-2025, India's AI landscape shows a clear tilt toward text-based AI, with over 90 Indian companies active in the space, compared to 57 in voice-based AI. Text-based platforms tend to focus on document processing, chat interfaces, and analytics. In contrast, voice-based companies are more concentrated in customer service, telephony, and regional language access, according to data from Tracxn. In terms of funding, voice-first AI startups have attracted larger funding rounds at later stages, while text AI startups show broader distribution, especially at earlier stages. For example, a voice-first AI firm, raised a total of $47.6 million across five funding rounds. Similarly, has cumulatively secured around $102 million, including a major $78.15M Series C round in 2021, making it one of the top-funded startups in voice AI, data from Tracxn shows. However, data remains the foundational challenge for voice models. Voice AI systems need massive, diverse datasets that not only cover different languages, but also regional accents, slangs and emotional tonality. Chaitanya C., co-founder and chief technological officer of Ozonetel Communications, put it simply: 'The datasets matter the most—speaking as an AI engineer, I can say it's not about anything else; it's all about the data." IndiaAI Mission has allocated ₹199.55 crore for datasets—just about 2% of the mission's total ₹10,300 crore budget —while 44% has gone to compute. 'Investments solely in compute are inherently transient—their value fades once consumed. On the other hand, investments in datasets build durable, reusable assets that continue to deliver value over time," said Chaitanya. He also emphasized the scarcity of rich, culturally-relevant data in regional languages like Telugu and Kannada. 'The amount of data easily available in English, when compared with Telugu and Kannada or Hindi, it's not even comparable," he said. 'Somewhere it's just not perfect, it wouldn't be as good as an English story, which is why I wouldn't want it to tell a Telugu story for my kid." 'Some movie comes out, nobody's going to write it in government documents, but people are going to talk about it, and that is lost," he added, pointing out that government datasets often lack cultural nuance and everyday language. Gopalan of agreed. 'The colloquial language is often very different from the written form. Language experts have a great career path ahead of them because they not only understand the language technically, but also know how to converse naturally and grasp colloquial nuances." Startups are now employing creative methods to fill these gaps. 'First, we collect data directly from the field using multiple methods—and we're careful with how we handle that data. Second, we use synthetic data in some cases. Third, we augment that synthetic data further. In addition, we also leverage a substantial amount of open-source data available from universities and other sources," Gopalan said. Synthetic data is artificially-generated data that mimics real-world data for use in training, testing, or validating models. Upperwal added that Soket AI uses a similar approach: 'We start by training smaller AI models with the limited real voice data we have. Once these smaller models are reasonably accurate, we use them to generate synthetic voice data—essentially creating new, artificial examples of speech." However, some intend to consciously stay away from synthetic data. Ankush Sabarwal, CEO and founder of CoRover AI, said the company relies exclusively on real data, deliberately avoiding synthetic data, 'If I am a consumer and I am interacting with an AI bot, the AI bot will become intelligent by the virtue of it interacting with a human like me." The ethical labyrinth of voice AI As companies begin to scale their data pipelines, the new Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act will shape how they collect and use voice data. 'The DPDP law emphasizes three key areas: it mandates clear, specific, and informed consent before collecting data. Second, it enforces purpose limitation—data can only be used for legitimate, stated purposes like KYC or employment, not unrelated model training. Third, it requires data localization, meaning critical personal data must reside on servers in India," said Makhija. He added, 'Companies have begun including consent notices at the start of customer calls, often mentioning AI training. However, the exact process of how this data flows into model training pipelines is still evolving and will become clearer as DPDP rules are fully implemented." Outsourcing voice data collection raises red flags, too. 'For a deep-tech company like ours, voice data is one of the most powerful forms of IP (intellectual property) we have, and outsourcing it could compromise its integrity and ownership. What if someone is using copyrighted material?" said Gopalan.
Indian Express
3 hours ago
- Indian Express
Narasimha Rao knew 17 languages, today we are asking — why learn Hindi: Naidu
Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu Tuesday said former PM P V Narasimha Rao was a scholarly person who knew 17 languages, and took a veiled dig at the charge of Hindi imposition in states like Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, saying, 'now we are asking — why should we learn Hindi'? During a lecture on 'The life and legacy of former PM Shri PV Narasimha Rao', Naidu termed him a 'great statesman' and 'visionary' who changed the future of India. Independent India, he said, is divided into two phases: pre-economic reforms and after it. Recalling the 1991 economic crisis, Naidu credited Rao for the economic reforms and called him 'one of the greatest sons of Bharat Mata'. 'P V Narasimha Rao was the Deng Xiaoping of India,' he said, likening the opening up of the economy in 1991 to Deng's transformation of the Chinese economy in 1978. 'He changed the future of India and we are enjoying the fruits of his reforms today,' Naidu said. '… Rao was heading a minority government then. Yet, because of his political acumen he could build a consensus across parties and ideologies. This was his greatest achievement,' he said. Naidu said it was because of the 1991 economic reforms that despite there being coalition governments between 1989 and 2014, 'the results produced were better than those in the previous decades with majority governments'. He commended ex-PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee for continuing the good work of Rao, recalling the road infra and telecom strides during his government (1998 to 2004). Naidu pointed to what he saw as India's four strengths — economic reforms, demographic dividend, first-mover IT advantage and now the strong leadership of PM Narendra Modi. 'Under Modi-ji from 2014, there has been further progress. India will become the third largest economy in 2028,' he said. Vikas Pathak is deputy associate editor with The Indian Express and writes on national politics. He has over 17 years of experience, and has worked earlier with The Hindustan Times and The Hindu, among other publications. He has covered the national BJP, some key central ministries and Parliament for years, and has covered the 2009 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls and many state assembly polls. He has interviewed many Union ministers and Chief Ministers. Vikas has taught as a full-time faculty member at Asian College of Journalism, Chennai; Symbiosis International University, Pune; Jio Institute, Navi Mumbai; and as a guest professor at Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi. Vikas has authored a book, Contesting Nationalisms: Hinduism, Secularism and Untouchability in Colonial Punjab (Primus, 2018), which has been widely reviewed by top academic journals and leading newspapers. He did his PhD, M Phil and MA from JNU, New Delhi, was Student of the Year (2005-06) at ACJ and gold medalist from University Rajasthan College in Jaipur in graduation. He has been invited to top academic institutions like JNU, St Stephen's College, Delhi, and IIT Delhi as a guest speaker/panellist. ... Read More
