The proposed dashboard will be important in offering a comprehensive outlook for implementing corrective measures and in betterment of citizen-focused communication strategies.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) is planning to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to predict  media trends. In its recently issued Expression of Interest (EoI), the Ministry emphasised the importance of staying ahead of news trends for effective public communication and engagement. By using Artificial Learning (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), the Ministry aspires to create a tool capable of predicting media trends by analysing historical data patterns.

The proposed dashboard will be important in offering a comprehensive outlook for implementing corrective measures and in betterment of citizen-focused communication strategies. Moreover, the government plans  to promote its initiatives through multilingual translation and voice localization tools. Key components of this tool will include historical data analysis, language insights, real-time monitoring, customizable alerts, and integration with social media to track discussions and public engagement.

The platform is expected to support content translation, transcription, transliteration, and localization in 12 Indian languages: Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Punjabi, Urdu, and Assamese. Proficiency in 10 additional languages, including Kashmiri, Konkani, Manipuri, Nepali, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Bodo, Santhali, Maithili, and Dogri, will be an advantage for applicants. The platform will also allow for the inclusion of more Indian languages as needed.

To implement this dashboard, the Ministry is looking for an agency with expertise in AI-ML-based digital platforms. The main objective is to engage citizens more effectively and to counter misinformation by predicting emerging trends. This approach focuses on facilitating quick interventions, thereby increasing credibility and public trust. The platform will also offer features like data visualisation, security measures for data integrity and confidentiality, report generation, contextual sentiment analysis, and an AI-driven decision support system to recommend corrective actions based on media feedback.

The dashboard will provide updates four times a day, covering four media formats: print, electronic, online/digital, and social media. It will scan over 100 print and 4,000 online publications using specific keywords and monitor more than 200 YouTube channels in 16 major regional languages, according to The Hindu. In addition, it will enable data segregation by topic, sector, ministry, and trends, and generate separate feeds for editorials and opinion pieces.

The contract for the platform, which will support both online and offline data input and integration of legacy data from various sources, will be awarded for one year, with the possibility of an extension for an additional year. The Ministry emphasised the importance of user-friendly interactions, including video and text uploads, and the ability to generate translated content in downloadable formats.

“The AI platform should be developed as an application layer over and above Bhashini’s AI models, which enables language translations (text-text, speech-speech, text-speech, and speech-text) to be leveraged,” the EoI stated.

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