To make it easy for “print publishers to create mobile-friendly web content,” Mountain View, California-based Google launched Navlekha, (New Writing) a platform to help Indian language publishers get on the web. It will use artificial intelligence to render any PDF containing Indian language content into editable text. Navlekha has begun on-boarding Hindi publishers from Delhi.
There are twenty-two official languages in India, but content on the internet is predominantly in English. Per Google’s estimates, 90% of the country’s registered 135,000 publications don’t even have a website. For technology companies constantly looking to onboard more users from the interior of the country, making regional content available is vital.
Kartik Hosanagar, a professor of technology and digital business at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School said, “The recent announcement is a natural move to increase its [Google’s] user base in India. At the same time, it’s only one of a series Google will need if it hopes to penetrate the hundreds of millions of Indians.”
In 2016, Google launched the tap to translate program that allows users to translate an image or text to their own native language. This year, in August, it added a new feature to Google Go, its search app, that now lets users listen to web pages in twenty-eight Indian languages.
Last updated: December 26th, 2025
