Ministry of External Affairs outreach getting lost in translation

An extreme deficiency of translators, interpreters and foreign language experts in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) is seriously hindering its diplomatic outreach. It has been found that the Interpreter cadre of the Ministry is limited to just 33 personnel covering seven languages. In addition, the linguistic base of India’s diplomats is limited to five UN languages and only 35 per cent of officers posted abroad serve in their respective language zones. As India takes centre stage in BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), it lack an interpreter to translate Brazilian, Russian and Chinese into proficient Hindi. Two years ago, it was left to a Russian diplomat to interpret Modi’s meeting with Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Olegovich Rogozin.

As many as 200 Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officers are not equipped with any of the foreign language.

Over the years, MEA has increased Chinese language experts. Taking cue from such experience, it told the Parliamentary Standing Committee recently that it was planning a robust programme to impart foreign language training to IFS officers.

There are currently 76 Chinese language-speaking officers. This is the fifth largest group after Arabic (100), Russian (94), French (86) and Spanish (81).

To make up the deficiency of …read more