Guv speaks Khasi, Garo in Assembly

Staff Reporter

Shillong, Feb 16: The Meghalaya Governor Phagu Chauhan today spoke a few lines in Khasi, Garo during his opening remarks before delivering his address in Hindi on the first day of the Assembly’s budget session.

He greeted the members of the House with “Nga ai khublei ia phi baroh kiba don ha kane ka por” “nasimang pilakna namgipa salam ko onchengna ska” or “I thank you all who are present here today”.

Last year, four legislators of the opposition Voice of the People Party (VPP) had staged a walkout as a mark of protest against Chauhan for delivering his address in ‘Hindi’. However this year, the VPP had requested the Assembly Speaker to make arrangements for translating the Governor’s address in English, which was accordingly granted today.

The Governor however cut short his address due to his health condition.

Assembly Speaker Thomas A Sangma 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 (address) may be taken as read,” he said.

On 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 also announced his decision to introduce live translation from Khasi, Garo and Jaintia to English in the next session of the Assembly.