[News] Farmers' IT cell at Ghazipur border provides English subtitles for online speeches to spread message widely

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Most farmers' leaders are of the view that despite all their efforts through kisan panchayats and mahapanchayats in several states, the message is not percolating well, especially in southern part of the country. Hence, they are thinking of new ways to send the message to grassroots. While several mechanisms are being thought about how to make it a more inclusive agitation, but so far, the organisers haven't been successful. The reason is a language barrier. But now, farmers have found a new way of sending the message across masses and even in states which are yet not connected with the movement. Farmers' leader Jagtaar Singh Bajwa tells India Today TV, "Most of our leaders deliver their speeches in either Hindi or Punjabi. It is difficult to make people in non-Hindi speaking states understand their language. Hence, we are now posting all important speeches with English subtitles." The decision was not quite easy as there are several local dialects and providing transcripts in regional languages is not an easy job. To overcome this challenge, a team led by young leaders has been assigned this job. Rajkishore Singh, who looks after the co-ordination with media at Ghazipur border, explains, "We actually want to translate the speeches in multiple languages like Bengali, Oriya, Tamil, Telegu, Malayalam and Kannada. But it's not possible to provide simultaneous subtitles in all these languages. We have started with English and will provide subtitles in other languages later on." While farmers have been camping at Delhi borders for over three months, their protest isn't limited just to the national capital. Kisan panchayats and mahapanchayats are being routinely held and well-attended in several states. Farmers' leader Baljinder Singh Mann while explaining the new strategy says, "We are now working as an IT cell of the entire farmers' movement. Our job is to track all speeches. We keep our eyes on important points made in a particular speech. For example, if Rakesh Tikait is addressing a crowd, then we listen to his speech through Facebook and immediately after it ends, we prepare subtitles." The team is growing every day. Its members also include college students. Prince Das is the young brain behind it. He says, "We are already a team of 15-20 people. All of them are from different backgrounds and states. In days to come, we will have volunteers from almost all states for translation and transcription." The farmers say the idea behind this is to keep spreading their message u