Sri Sri Centre for Translation
and Interpreting Studies (SSCTIS)
About the Centre:
Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies is a research centre established on February 22, 2021, by Pujya Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar to promote translation and interpreting studies in India as per the guidelines of NEP 2020. This centre for excellence functions under Sri SriUniversity, a State Private University established by the Sri Sri University Act – 2009 by the Odisha State Legislative Assembly, founded by His Holiness Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Since translation industry globally is witnessing a paradigm shift, fields with the demands of translator and interpreter multiplying manifold in industries and fields like, medical translation, community interpretation, newspaper translation, heritage interpretation, legal translation, machine translation, Parliamentary interpretation, etc., Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies ensures that the students will be benefitted by joining courses offered by the centre and also assist them to find job opportunities in this ever growing industry.
Vision of the Centre:
Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies is the first ever centre in any Indian university which brings together both translation and interpreting studies. As practices of translation and interpreting are increasingly becoming significant in the entire world and especially in a plurilingual country like India, our vision is to promote an excellent opportunity for learning, practicing and research in the field of translation and interpreting studies, with the option of pursuing a certificate course in the field of translation, localization and interpretation thereby aiming to create an interdisciplinary centre for translation, adaptation, localization, machine translation, interpretation and other related forms of communication. SSCTIS as per the vision of the NEP2020, is also working towards a language lab for learning Indian languages.
Mission of the Centre:
Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies under the auspicious guidance of Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, desires to build a holistic and spiritually uplifting eco-environment to conduct socially useful research that is relevant to the academic community and also engage with public interest. The proposed Centre will try to foster skills like, community interpreting, medical interpreting, legal interpreting etc, through realistic scenarios by sending the students to the actual field to serve the marginalised communities, poor people in dire need of medical attention or legal help.
The proposed centre will try to become one of the vibrant, dynamic and collaborative learning centre of interpreting and translation skills in entire India guided by professional translators and interpreters. The certificate course titled, “Professional Translation and Interpretation” will reflect industry practices in its curriculum, resulting in making the students fit for taking up translation and interpretation professionally and also provide them a solid basis for continuing on to a research degree. The proposed Centre with the help of state-of-the-art facilities at Sri Sri University and skilled faculties and academic staffs, and regular inputs from experienced professionals from outside will ensure the students of the centre gain the expertise needed for a successful career in translation and interpreting.
Focus Areas:
- Run Certificate Course in Professional Translation and Localization
- Run Certificate Course in learning Indian Languages, i.e., Tamil, Assamese, Nepali etc.
- Collaborate with reputed national and international bodies to conduct translator training workshops.
- Finding out possibilities to acquire research grants by submitting projects to Government and Private funding agencies.
- Conduct Seminars/Panels on professional and technical translation, adaptation and localization.
- Signing MoUs with higher education institutions, other translation and interpreting studies research centres and corporates working in the field of professional localizations and translations
- Publishing translated books of both literary and knowledge texts from the Centre
Advisory Board Members of SSCTIS:
Chairperson – Prof. B.R. Sharma, Hon’ble Vice Chancellor, Sri Sri University, Cuttack, India.
Advisory Board Members:
- Guru Ratikant Mahapatra, Dean, Faculty of Arts, Communication and Indic Studies, Sri Sri University, Cuttack, Odisha, India
- Prof. Kalyani Samantray, Professor and Head, Faculty of Arts, Communication and Indic Studies, Sri Sri University, Cuttack, Odisha, India
- Prof. Sanjukta Dasgupta, Professor and Former Head, Department of English, and Former Dean, Faculty of Arts, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, West Bengal, India
- Prof. Jantindra Kumar Nayak, Professor Emeritus, Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (Deemed to be University), Bhubaneswar, Odisha, Indi
- Prof. Anisur Rahman, Professor and Former Head, Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India
- Prof. Suchorita Chattopadhyay, Professor and Former Head, Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, West Bengal, India
- Prof. Shivarama Padikkal, Former Professor of Translation Studies, Centre for Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies, University of Hyderabad, Telangana, India
- Prof. Sayantan Dasgupta, Professor and Former Head, Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, India
- Prof. Sachin Ketkar, Professor in English, Faculty of Arts, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, Gujarat, India
- Prof. Madhusmita Pati, Professor and Former Head of the Department of English, Rama Devi Women’s University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India
- Dr. Tariq Khan, Officer In-charge of National Translation Mission, Central Institute
- Mr. Basudev Das, Renowned Translator at Sahitya Akademi and Guest Teacher, Comparative Indian Languages and Literature, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India
- Mr. R. Harikrishnan, Assistant Professor of English, Faculty of Arts, Communication and Indic Studies, Sri Sri University
- Dr. Rindon Kundu, Director, Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies, Sri Sri University, Cuttack, Odisha, India
About the Director:
Dr. Rindon Kundu has been appointed as the Founder Director of Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies. Apart from this responsibility, he is also an Assistant Professor of English at the Faculty of Arts, Communication and Indic Studies, Sri Sri University. In addition to this he also serves as the Treasurer of the Comparative Literature Association of India since March 2019. With the exception of all these duties he has also been nominated as the South Asian Director of International Association for Eco-Translatology Research in the year 2018. He has been elected as a Steering Committee Member of the International Comparative Literature Association’s (ICLA) Committee on Translation Studies.
He has been awarded with several international and national fellowships and grants i.e., the Volkswagen Stiftung Grant by Volkswagen Foundation in 2021, Germany; EST Young Research Travel Grant by the European Society for Translation Studies in 2019; British Academy Full Grant in 2019; 6th IATIS Bursary Award by the International Association of Translation and Intercultural Studies in 2018; UGC RUSA 2.0 Travel Grant in 2019 by Govt. of India and Travel Grant by Jadavpur University in 2018.
- MoU with Calcutta Comparatists 1919, [an Educational Trust (Regd. No. IV-190200469/2022)] on 6th May 2022 and an addendum was passed on 10th December 2022
The Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies, FACIS, SSU as per the vision of Centre for Excellence is in the process of creating a language lab for learning Indian Languages. Calcutta Comparatists 1919 shall collaborate in organizing the Certificate Courses in learning Indian languages to be offered jointly by SSCTIS and CC1919 and engaging in relevant exchanges of teaching and training, thereby helping SSCTIS in expanding the scope of the Certificate Courses.
- MoU with Braahmam Net Solutions Pvt. Ltd. (an ISO 17100:2015 Certified International Company) on 29th January 2023
Braahmam Net Solutions Pvt. Ltd. agrees to provide inputs to Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies, Sri Sri University regarding a mechanism whereby the educational and research environment in the field of Professional Translation and Localization as well as employability through internships and other such avenues i.e., apprenticeship, professional training can be used to develop better in the field of professional Translation and Localization.
- MoU with Alliance Française du Bengale, Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Alliance Française du Bengale, Kolkata, West Bengal, India, and Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies, Sri Sri University, Cuttack, India entered into signing an MoU with a view of sharing a common desire to collaboratively start Certificate Courses in French Language which will be a great opportunity for both the organizations towards promoting French language, culture, literature, and translation and interpretation in and from French language.
Three Months’ Certificate Course in Tamil:
The Centre has initiated a Certificate Course in Tamil in collaboration with Calcutta Comparatists 1919.
- First Batch of the 3 Months’ Online Certificate Course in Tamil (April – July 2023)
The first partnership between these SSCTIS and CC1919 is a three-month Tamil online certificate course began on 2nd April 2023. Shri Sourav Chakraborty, an experienced Tamil language instructor for more than two decades was appointed by CC1919 to conduct the Online Certificate Course. He has been associated with Jadavpur University, Kolkata; the International School of Dravidian Linguistics, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala; the University of Calcutta, Kolkata; and the Ramakrishna Mission School of Languages, Golpark, Kolkata. The Certificate Course had 47 enrolled participants from around India including faculties from Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi University, IIT Madras, Ashoka University, VIT Chennai, Christ University, Sahitya Akademi, British Institute, International School of Dravidian Linguistics, and postdoctoral fellow from the University of Cagliari in Italy and PhD fellows and MA and BA students from IIT Ropar, Jadavpur University, Sikkim University, Visva Bharati, University of Hyderabad, Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, EFLU Hyderabad, Bangalore University, Sri Sri University, etc.
- Second Batch of the 3 Months’ Online Certificate Course in Tamil (August – November 2023)
After receiving enormous responses in the first batch followed by several enquiries, the two organizations decided to offer second batch of the 3 Months’ Online Certificate Course in Tamil. We had 31 participants, including two individuals of foreign nationality, hailing from Norway and Bangladesh, as well as faculties hailing from esteemed institutions such as IIT Madras, University of Calcutta, OP Jindal Global University, and Centre for Equity Studies in New Delhi, as well as a post-doctoral fellow from the University of Gdansk in Poland, and PhD researchers from the University of Connecticut in the USA, IIT Mandi, IIT Ropar, Jawaharlal Nehru University, University of Hyderabad, Jadavpur University, and Central University of Gujarat, successfully completed the course.
Certificate Course in Chinese:
Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies, Faculty of Arts, Communication and Indic Studies, Sri Sri University, Cuttack, Odisha is going to begin a Certificate Course in Chinese which will be of four months and will be conducted online. As we all know that learning Chinese will help the student to connect with more than a billion people worldwide as statistically the Chinese language is the most spoken language in the world. SSCTIS has appointed Dr Barnali Chanda, a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (jointly funded by Harvard Yenching Institute and Ashoka University) at Ashoka University, New Delhi. The classes will begin from 6th May 2024.
The link to join the course is: https://forms.gle/LeZzK3FnWPBujAns8
Certificate Course in French:
Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies, Faculty of Arts, Communication and Indic Studies, Sri Sri University, Cuttack, Odisha, and Alliance Française du Bengale, Kolkata, India are have started taking admission in the Basic Certificate Course in French (A1.1) which is of four months (60 Hours) and will be conducted online. Alliance Française du Bengale, Kolkata will appoint experienced faculty to teach the certificate course in French. The course commencement date is 20th May 2024.
The link to join the course is: https://forms.gle/JDNfJk3KrQ5HLFNK7
Two-Week Online Faculty Development Programme titled, “Translation Studies from the Global South” organized by Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies in association with Association of Indian Universities – Sri Sri University – Academic and Administrative Centre (19th Feb – 5th March 2024)
Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies and Academic and Administrative Centre at Sri Sri University, Odisha, India, under the aegis of the Association of Indian Universities successfully organized a two-week Faculty Development Programme titled, “Translation Studies from the Global South” from 19th February till 5th March 2024.
Over the course of 14 days, scholars and esteemed professors from around the world i.e., Prof. Jatin Nayak, Professor Emeritus, Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (Deemed to be University), Odisha; Prof. John Milton, Distinguished Professor, University of São Paulo, Brazil; Prof. Youngmin Kim, Professor Emeritus, Dongguk University, South Korea; Prof. Rita Kothari, Professor and Co-Director, Centre for Translation, Ashoka University, New Delhi; Prof. Defeng Li, Director of Centre for Studies of Translation, Interpreting and Cognition, University of Macau, Macau; Prof. Ilse Feinauer, Ton and Anet Vosloo Chair in Afrikaans Language Practice, Stellenbosch University, South Africa; Prof. Chandrani Chatterjee, Professor of English, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Maharashtra; Prof. Duncan Large, Executive Director, British Centre for Literary Translation, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom; Prof. Sayantan Dasgupta, Co-ordinator, Centre for Translation of Indian Literatures, Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, West Bengal; Prof. Hephzibah Israel, Director of Impact and Knowledge Exchange, University of Edinburgh, UK; Prof. Duncan Poupard, Associate Professor, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; Dr Annie Rachel Royson, Assistant Professor, Pandit Deendayal Energy University, Gujarat; Dr Uchenna Oyali, Lecturer, University of Abuja, Nigeria; and Dr Sohomjit Ray, Assistant Professor, College of Staten Island, the City University of New York, USA and Dr Saswati Saha, Assistant Professor, Sikkim University, Sikkim, and Dr Rindon Kundu, Assistant Professor and Director of Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies, Sri Sri University, Odisha, India acted as resource persons in this FDP.
This Faculty Development Programme stemmed from a contention about whether the Global South can theorise translation, a field that has long been dominated by the Global North. This FDP was hosted by Dr Rindon Kundu, Director of SSCTIS, SSU, and Prof. (Dr.) Vijaya Lakshmi Mohanty, Director of HRDC, SSU and Nodal Officer of AIU-SSU-AADC. This FDP brought together 125 participants from different parts of India (1 from Yemen) to discuss current issues in translation studies, and look at the ideas and disciplinary paths of translation studies in peripheral regions. This FDP attempted to deconstruct the “universal” concept of translation by investigating diverse discursive practices in “marginal spaces” and bringing together alternate perspectives and methods of translation from the Global South.
This two-week FDP empowered the faculties to engage with the ‘decolonial’ studies in the field of Translation as well as how other disciplines can affect and contribute towards this discipline. Exploring various discursive practices in ‘marginal spaces,’ this Faculty Development Programme attempted to stitch together as many substitutive views and approaches to translation as possible from different geographies all over the world, which will dismantle the ‘universal’ notion of translation. Sri Sri University and the Association of Indian Universities collaborated on this Faculty Development Programme, which has done more than just increase the visibility of translation studies in India and abroad; it has also elevated Odisha’s academic institutions to the forefront of the field.
Celebration of International Mother Tongue Day:
Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies, Faculty of Arts, Communication and Indic Studies, Sri Sri University, Cuttack organized an online event to celebrate the International Mother Tongue Day on 21st February on virtual mode. Dr. Sipoy Sarveswar, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, Visva Bharati, and Dr. Sourav Chakraborty, Guest Teacher, Dept. of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University were invited on this august occasion. Both speakers highlighted the role of preserving one’s mother tongue in a multilingual and multicultural country like India.
National Level Panel Discussion under the title, “Acquaint Self with the Translator”:
The Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies’ first offline event featured Dr. Lalit Kumar, Assistant Professor of English at Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College, Delhi University, and Kalinga Literary Festival Book Award 2022 winner for his brilliant translation of Harimohan Jha’s Maithili classic Kanyadan. In the panel discussion, the centre also included Mr. Aditya Nayak, Sahitya Akademi editing assistant and famous translator. The session was chaired by veteran Professor Emeritus Jatin Nayak from KISS (Deemed to be University), winner of the KATHA Translation Award and Hutch-Crossword Book Award.
Translators and the session chair addressed practical translation. SSCTIS learned translating from practitioners since it is a practical skill. All the distinguished speakers offered their translation experiences and educated students about translation.
National Level Panel Discussion on PoCo/PoMo:
Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies, a centre for excellence under the Sri Sri University, organized a panel discussion on “Post-Modernism and Post-Colonialism” on 27th April 2023. The panel discussion attempted to understand the translational flows of concepts in both theoretical standpoints. Dr Asijit Datta, Assistant Professor in the School of Language and Literature at KIIT (Deemed to be University), Bhubaneswar, and Dr Gourab Chatterjee Assistant Professor in the School of Language and Literature at KIIT (Deemed to be University) were invited to speak in the national level panel discussion on PoCo/PoMo. The session was chaired by Prof. Kamala Prasad Mahapatra, HoD of the English programme at the Faculty of Arts, Communication and Indic Studies, Sri Sri University.
Dr Asijit Datta presented a talk on Posthumanism where he problematized the concept of ‘posthuman’ and notions of human fixity. He introduced the inquiry into the hybrid in positive and generative terms. Dr Gourab Chatterjee introduced African Literatures with special reference to Chinua Achebe. He engaged with African culture and literature as an area study and stressed on the importance of translation in understanding the African Literature. The moderator of the Panel Discussion was Dr. Rindon Kundu, Director of Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies, Sri Sri University, and the vote of thanks was delivered by Mr. R. Harikrishnan, Assistant Professor of English, Faculty of Arts, Communication and Indic Studies, Sri Sri University.
Tamil Lecture Series:
The Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies, Sri Sri University, Cuttack organized a Tamil Lecture Series to facilitate the students of the Tamil Certificate Courses. Dr Kiran Keshavamurthy, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Guwahati was invited on this august occasion. Sri Sri Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies, Sri Sri University, Cuttack organized an online event on Tamil Dalit Literature on 6th June on the virtual platform. Dr Keshavamurthy lectured on the skills and techniques of translation from and to Tamil. Dr K. A. Geetha, Associate Professor, Dept. of English, BITS Pilani Goa Campus was invited to speak on 12th June online. Dr Geetha delivered a lecture on Dalit Tamil literature. Both the lectures were attended by the faculty members and students of the Online Certificate courses in Tamil.
National Webinar on “World Literature”:
Dr Rindon Kundu, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Arts, Communication and Indic Studies, Sri Sri University, Odisha organised a national webinar on “World Literature” online from rd August to 16th August 2020. The webinar focussed on the concepts of ‘national literature’, ‘comparative literature’ and ‘world literature’. It looked at the transmission of texts, ‘consumption and production of literary texts’, ‘epistemologies and philosophies across spatio-temporal dimensions’, ‘national delimitations within the context of an international setting’. The webinar hosted scholars from different parts of India, i.e., Dr. Sayantan Dasgupta, Head and Associate Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, Kolkata; Dr. Barnali Chanda, Ashoka-Harvard Yenching Institute China Studies Post-Doctoral Fellow, New Delhi; Dr. Mrinmoy Pramanick, Head and Assistant Professor at the Department of Comparative Indian Language and Literature, University of Calcutta, Kolkata; Dr. Sachin C. Ketkar, Professor in English, Faculty of Arts, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara; Prof. Indranil Acharya is Professor and former Head of the Department of English, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore; and Dr. Kiran Keshavamurthy, Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati.
Over two thousand people signed up to participate in this webinar that was held on a national scale. On August 3rd, 2020, the webinar was officially launched by the Honourable President of Sri Sri University, Professor Rajita Kulkarni, and the Honourable Vice Chancellor of Sri Sri University, Professor A. K. Singh.
International Webinar on “Translation Studies across Frontiers”:
Dr Rindon Kundu, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Arts, Communication and Indic Studies, Sri Sri University, Odisha in collaboration with Prof. Shivarama Padikkal from the Centre for Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies, University of Hyderabad, organised an International Webinar on virtual mode titled “Translation Studies across Frontiers” from 31st August 2020 to 16th October 2020. which attempted to find out how other disciplines affected and contributed towards the discipline of TS. The international webinar was conceptualised to bring learned scholars and keen students of translation studies together to exchange ideas and to have a meaningful interaction.
The speakers’ list was quite exhaustive and tried to represent scholars from different specializations of Translation Studies and from all corners of the world. We had Prof. Mona Baker, Emeritus Professor of Translation Studies, Centre for Translation & Intercultural Studies, University of Manchester, UK and Director, Baker Centre for Translation & Intercultural Studies, Shanghai International Studies University, China; Prof. Michael Cronin, 1776 Chair Professor of French, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and Member of the Royal Irish Academy; Dr. María Luisa Rodríguez Muñoz, Acting Professor, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, Universidad de Córdoba, Córdoba, Spain; Prof. Kobus Marais, Professor, Department of Linguistics and Language Practice, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa and Vice-president, Association for Translation Studies in Africa; Prof. Kalyani Samantray, Professor and Head, Faculty of Arts, Communication and Indic Studies, Sri Sri University, Cuttack, India; Prof. Douglas Robinson, Professor of Translating and Interpreting, Chinese University of Hong Kong, (Shenzhen) and Emeritus Professor at Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong; Prof. Sameh Hanna, Global Bible Translation Consultant, United Bible Society and Visiting Research Fellow & Associate Professor in Arabic Literature and Translation, School of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of Leeds, UK; Prof. Harish Trivedi, Former Professor, Department of English, Delhi University, Delhi, India; Prof. Udaya Kumar, Professor, Centre for English Studies, School of Language Literature and Culture Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, India and Prof. Rita Kothari, Professor of English, Ashoka University, New Delhi, India.
There were more than 3000+ registrations for this international webinar. Hon’ble President of Sri Sri University, Prof. Rajita Kulkarni, Hon’ble Vice Chancellor of Sri Sri University Prof. A. K. Singh and Prof. Bhimrao Panda Bhonsle, Head of the Centre for Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies, University of Hyderabad, Telangana inaugurated the webinar on 31st August 2020.
- SSCTIS Annual Report AY 2022-2023 (Click Here)
- SSCTIS Annual Report AY 2021-2022 (Click Here)