Lokmat News Network

Mumbai: Adding subtitles in the same language as the audio in television programmes can help viewers better understand the language and improve their reading skills. Highlighting this potential, Brijesh Singh, Principal Secretary and Director General of the Department of Information and Public Relations, Government of Maharashtra, said that the initiative could give a significant boost to language learning.

Singh inaugurated the ‘Marathi Same Language Subtitling Centre’ at Doordarshan Kendra, Mumbai, on 14 October 2026.

The occasion was attended by several dignitaries, including Hemant Desai, Deputy Director General, Engineering Department; Ganesh Iyer of the CRD Department, Doordarshan Kendra, Mumbai; and Brij Kothari, Adjunct Professor at the School of Public Policy, IIT Delhi, and founder of PlanetRead and the Billion Readers Initiative (BIRD).

The initiative is a joint effort of the Government of Maharashtra, Prasar Bharati, IIT Delhi and PlanetRead, aimed at media accessibility, literacy and language learning. It seeks to implement quality same-language subtitling and to improve media access for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers.

Project Launched at Eight Doordarshan Centres

A project has been launched across eight Doordarshan centres in India to add Same Language Subtitles (SLS) to 1,500 hours of content across 15 languages on WAVES OTT platform. The participating centres are located in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Jalandhar and Itanagar.

For Marathi, Pahili Majhi Ovi Ga, a programme celebrating the rich heritage of Marathi ovi folk songs, has been selected as the first programme for subtitling. Five episodes are now available with SLS on the platform.

‘StarDost’ to Encourage Reading Habit Through Storytelling

• The storytelling initiative ‘Star Dost’ aims to build a reading habit. Under the initiative, more than 50 stories have been presented in ten languages: Marathi, Hindi, English, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Punjabi, Gujarati and Bengali.
• The Marathi edition of ‘Star Dost’ was launched in September and has received a positive response from Marathi artists. Kaushal Inamdar, Pallavi Ajay, Ayesha Kaduskar and Shrikant Desai have contributed to it. Their episodes will be available on YouTube.