Shillong, Feb 16: Governor Phagu Chauhan ended his address on the first day of the Budget session of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly after reading a few paragraphs of the text in Hindi as he was unwell.
The governor also spoke a few words in Khasi and Garo.
He greeted the members of the House with “Nga ai khublei ia phi baroh kiba don ha kane ka por” (I thank you all who are present here today).
The governor was seated while addressing the House as he was unwell.
Assembly Speaker Thomas Sangma announced that the remaining portion of the speech of the Governor should be considered as read.
The translated copies of the speech in English were distributed to the members of the House.
The Assembly also tried live translation of the governor’s speech and it was partially successful.
The legislators of VPP had threatened to boycott the budget session over Governor addressing the members in Hindi. They also wanted simultaneous translation of the speech. The Assembly provided simultaneous translation besides the circulation of copies of the speech.
The assembly speaker said that the governor had to cut short his address because he could not speak for long due to his health problems.
“This is usually done on health grounds and also since the governor’s office has requested that it may be taken as read,” he said.
When asked about the live translation, the Speaker said, “There will be some flaws as I would say because this is for the first time, we have taken the initiative to give the live translation of the governor’s address which was done in Hindi. Simultaneous translation was done in English language. Certainly there will be some flaws because it is for the first time that we are doing it but it may not be as verbatim but it was done with the help of an artificial intelligence programme and also done manually. So we still have a long way to go towards achieving 100 percent accuracy of this.”
The speaker announced his decision to introduce live translation from Khasi, Garo and Jaintia to English in the next session of the Assembly.
