Tag: movie

How an idea from IIT Delhi is turning movie subtitles into a literacy tool for billions in India | Mint

August 9, 2026
Categories: ENGLISH EDITION
Tags: ame-Language Subtitles, brij kothar, Brij Kothari, broadcasting, captions, iit delhi, India education policy, language learning, literacy initiative, movie, pathan movie, reading skills, Same Language Subtitles, shah rukh khan

What began as a PhD student’s frustration while watching Spanish films in the United States three decades ago has today evolved into a nationwide literacy movement that is shaping India’s broadcasting policy on subtitling. In an interview with Mint, Brij Kothari, who leads BIRD, or the Billion Readers initiative, traces the remarkable three-decade journey of Same Language Subtitling (SLS), the idea of displaying subtitles in the same language as the audio, such as Hindi subtitles on Hindi films or Tamil subtitles on Tamil programmes. Also Read | How to add subtitles to YouTube videos Today, after years of resistance, research ... Read more