India Faces Shortage Of Interpreters To Translate Intercepts Of Terrorist Conversations

Indian army is facing shortage of trained interpreters in Urdu, Pashtun and Dari to translate the intercepted conversation between terrorists.

Though shortage of trained men to interpret has existed for long, it has become a major issue now as the agencies are picking up frequent chatter after the Sep 29 surgical strikes, the New Indian Express reported today.

Intelligence agencies are not always lucky and the Army units on the border do not have trained interpreters to understand the conversation.

Despite the fact that officers are taught linguistics at the Army training centre in Madhya Pradesh and the School of Foreign Language in Delhi. Most select lucrative language courses like French, German or Italian to get foreign postings. Hence, the army personnel who are fluent in Urdu are less than one per cent.

“There is a huge difference between spoken and learnt language. To pick every word, you need an expert. Signal intelligence lacks these experts,” an officer said. So, by the time the chatter is translated, crucial ‘actionable’ time lapses.