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| PROF. UDAYA NARAYANA SINGH |
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[Telefax: 03463-262157 (Off); 094340-50218 (M) Email: unsciil@yahoo.com / uns@visva-bharati.ac.in ]
A major linguist, translator, lexicographer & creative writer, Udaya Narayana Singh was born in 1951 at Calcutta; Grassroot bilingual in Bangla (from mother) and Maithili (from Father). Studied through the medium of Bangla (Hare School, Kolkata) and English (Sanskrit College, Kolkata and at Delhi)
Currently, Singh occupies a Professorial Chair, Rabindra Bhavana (June 11, 2009 to August 19, 2010 and again June 16, 2012 onwards) which is a substantive position in Visva-Bharati. He had been the first Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Visva-Bharati between Aug 20, 2010 and June 15, 2012. He had also functioned as the Director (I/C), Rabindra Bhavana between March 2010 and June 2011 and again from January 2012 until mid-April 2012. He was formerly the Director of Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Ministry of HRD at the level of Joint Secretary, Govt of India from Dec 2000 to June 10, 2009.
Studied Honors in Linguistics at Calcutta 1969-1972 (designated Eshan Scholar), and Master’s at the University of Delhi 1972-74 (awarded Uggarsain Memorial Gold Medal), and a semester at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA (with Linguistic Society of America Fellowship) in 1978. Earned Ph.D. degree in Linguistics (in Syntax and Semantics) in 1979; University of Delhi.
As a litterateur, Singh is known to be a major poet, playwright and essayist in Bangla and Maithili; Also writes in English and Hindi. Udaya Narayana has published 7 collections of poems and 11 plays as well as 7 books of literary essays, besides translating 6 books – with special reference to translation of Tagore’s complete works on Children’s literature from Bangla into Maithili for Sahitya Akademi. In addition, he has authored over 180 research papers in Linguistics and edited about 16 books. Awarded the Keertinarayan Mishra Award (Chetana Samiti) for his play ‘No entry: Maa Pravisha’, 2009; by the Chief Minister of Bihar on 31st October, 2009 (premiered in Patna on 21st February, 2011).
Singh’s latest book-length publications include Translation as Growth: Towards a theory of Language Development (2010; Longman-Pearson), Sahityer Bhasha: Bhashar Sahitya (2010; Anushtup, Kolkata), and Esecho Eso Rat (2011; Sahaj Path, Kolkata), besides an edited volume with Lesley Farrel & Ram Ashish Giri, titled English Language Education in South Asia: From Policy to Perspectives (2011; Cambridge University Press, Foundation Books Series), besides a series of six bilingual dictionaries from English into Indian languages – Hindi, Oriya, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Bengali, published by Longman-NTM-CIIL jointly in 2012. His forthcoming books this year include a collection of ghost stories written for children in Bangla – Bhut Chaturdashi (2012; Karigar, Kolkata) and a collection of essays in language, society and culture titled Agency of Language (2012).
Professor Singh had had a rich administrative experience in various capacities. His current responsibilities include looking after the administration, finance and academic aspects of Visva-Bharati as its first Pro-Vice-Chancellor(Aug 2010 onwards), besides being the Director of Culture and Cultural Relations and Adhyaksha, Rabindra Bhavana. He was formerly the Director of Central Institute of Indian Languages from Dec 2000 to June 10, 2009. He also served as the Dean, Students’ welfare at the University of Hyderabad. He was the founder-Head, Centre for Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies at the University of Hyderabad: (1987-2000), better known as CALTS, grew up to be an internationally renowned institution on its own right.
Professor Singh had also created many innovative programmes by setting up as its founder-Director at the University of Hyderabad – the internationally acclaimed SIP or the ‘Study India Program’. He had also established the large Centre for Distance Education at Hyderabad. He is a part of the SAARC Inter-Governmental Council for the establishment of the South Asian University (SAU), appointed by the Ministry of External Affairs, Govt of India.
As a faculty, Singh taught Linguistics, Translation Studies, Comparative Literature, English Studies and Anthropology and has been a Visiting Lecturer in Linguistics (University of Delhi, 1979), Lecturer in Sociolinguistics at MSU- Baroda (1979-81), Reader in Theoretical Linguistics at the South Gujarat University, Surat (1981-85), a Reader in Linguistics in Delhi University (1985-87) and Professor of Linguistics (1987-2000) at the University of Hyderabad. Delivered the prestigious Prof. S.K.Chatterji Memorial lectures; Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi; October 2008. Also delivered the 5th Gargi Gupta Memorial Lecture at the French Embassy Information Centre & Bharatiya Anuvad Parishad, Delhi, Nov 12, 2009. Delivered Plenary Lecture, 18th European Conference on South Asian Studies, University of Lund, Sweden, 2005 and Inaugural Plenary, 14th World Pragmatics Congress, University of Goteborg, Sweden, 2008; Special lecture at the United Nations on the occasion of International Year of Languages, December 2008; 5th Gargi Gupta Memorial Lecture, Bharatiya Anuvad Parishad, Delhi 12th November 2009; Lectures at the London Book Fair, 2009; Tagore Memorial Lecture at IIT, Kharagpur in December 2009; Prof. Shantibhai Desai Memorial Lecture at Kuvempu University, Shimoga, April 2011; Special Lecture at the Joint Bangladesh-India Tagore 150 Celebrations, Dhaka, May 2011; Inauguration Invited Lecture at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington May, 2011. Member of Indian delegation in Paris and Chicago for establishment of Vivekananda Chair and Inauguration of Tagore’s Original Painting Exhibition in February 2012; Keynote at the World Bengali Convention, Dhaka, Bangladesh on 19-21 February, 2012; Inaugural Lecture at the European Hindi Conference at the university of Valladolid, Spain in March 2012. Plenary lecture in the International Forum for US Studies Conference at UIUC on 5-7 April, 2012.
Project Supervision: Supervised as Director or Consultant several major research projects on Language Movement (funded by MSU & Centre for Social Studies), NLP (DoE), Digital Documentation (SASNET & SIDA, Sweden), Machine Translation (MC&IT), and Linguistic Data Consortium in Indian Languages (LDC-IL) - MHRD. Besides the above, he was the Chief of the National Translation Mission (NTM) specially approved by the Prime Minister of India, and also the Chief Consultant of the Microsoft’s Validation Project for Vista; Director, NSOU-CIIL Joint Project on Bangla Online, 2002-04 and Director, CIIL-SAG (Ministry of Defence) Spoken Corpora and Contemporary Corpora Projects in Hindi, Bangla and Manipuri, 2005-07. In addition, he had conceived of and executed the Bhasha Mandakini Project under which 560 films were made on Bangla, Tamil and Kannada language, literature, and culture. For the large projects designed and supervised, also look at:
• The National Translation Mission (or, NTM) at www.ntm.org.in
• The National Testing Service (or, NTS), and at www.ciil.miles.net & www.nts.net
• The Linguistic Data Consortium for Indian Languages (or, LDC-IL) at www.ldcil.org
• Besides the Centre of Excellence in Classical Tamil (CECT as described in www.ciil-classicaltamil.org), which has now flowered into a new institution – called the CICT at Chennai.
• Rabindra Chitravali – an anthology of Tagore painting in four volumes – published in May 2011 by Visva-Bharati & Pratikshan
• Kalanukramik Rabindra Rachanabali – a new project sanctioned by the Ministry of Culture.
Doctoral Supervision: Supervised 14 doctoral and 21 M.Phil. level research work in Applied Linguistics, Translation Studies, ELT, Child Bilingualism, Lexicography and Literary Theory.
Personal Research Experience include Research Associate in a UNESCO project on `Language Teaching in Bi- or Pluri-lingual and Multi-cultural Context' , University of Delhi, June-July, 1978; UGC Junior & Senior Research Fellow: Univ of Delhi; 1974-79; Fellowship of the Linguistic Society of America for 1978 LINGUISTICS INSTITUTE at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaigne, USA, 14th May, 1978 to16 July, 1978
Editorial Distinctions: He had the distinction of being the Chief Editor of Indian Linguistics, 1988-1990, Editor (with P.P.Giridhar as Co-Editor) of Translation Today, and a Visiting Professor at the IIAS-Shimla (1989), besides being the Series Editor of eight books under Language and Development (LAD) under Sage India, and the General Editor of Longman-CIIL Series of eleven Bilingual Dictionaries. Co-Editor of International Journal of Inter-Cultural Relations; 2008-onwards. Member of the Editorial Board of the Brill’s series titled Studies in South and Southwest Asian Languages. Guest edited a special number of India Perspectives, 24.1 devoted to Rabindranath Tagore (2010), MEA, New Delhi. Member of the Editorial Board of Collins English-Hindi Bilingual Dictionaries (2011).
Visited and lectured in Bangladesh, Caribbean Islands, China, France, German Democratic Republic (GDR), Germany (unified), Iceland, Italy, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Thailand, U.K. & USA, and received several grants and honors. He led the Indian cultural delegation to China during 2007-08, a member of Indian delegation to Italy (April-May 1999) and to Trinidad & Tobago; and was a Poet-Invitee at the Frankfurt Book fair (2006) when India was the Guest of Honour, and also at the London Book Fair 2009 – ‘India Through Fresh Eyes’; A member of the Delegation of the Ministry of Culture to UNESCO, Paris (April 2011) and Dhaka, Bangladesh (May 2011).
Membership of learned societies/journals: Life Member of the following: * Linguistic Society of India; * Dravidian Linguistics Association; *Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics & Language Forum; * American Studies Research Centre, Hyderabad; * Indian Association of Canadian Studies; * Jijnasa Educational Foundation, Calcutta; * Indian Comparative Literature Association; * Indian Association for Commonwealth Literature * International Pragmatics association.
Created many Special purpose web-sites for E-Books (www.ciil-ebooks.net), Grammars (www.ciilgrammars.org), Information and Library facilities (www.CIILLibrary.org and also in http://www.ciil.org/Main/virlib/index1.htm), initiatives under the research on Indian languages Corpora (www.ciilcorpora.net, www.ciil-spokencorpus.net), Translation (www.anukriti.net and www.ntm.org.in), Documentation (www.ciilaudiovideo.net), etc.
Home-page: http://www.udayanarayana.com
Passport: J 9610901 issued at Kolkata on 3.1.2012 (valid until 2.1.2022).
Passport address (Res): B1& C1, Dakshinayan, Abanpally, Mauza Taltor, Santiniketan 731235 WB
Official address; Professor, Rabindra Bhavana, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, (Bolpur, Dt Birbhum, West
Bengal] PIN 731235
Permanent Address: A-132, Lake Gardens, Kolkata 700045 (India) |
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