Punjabi Community to Support Tibetan Wikisource
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ September 2,2025
After taking steps to launch Urdu Wikisource, Punjabi Wikimedians have now taken a step forward to help launch Tibetan Wikisource. During a two-day workshop organized by the Punjabi Wikimedians User Group, Tibetan Wikimedians participated and received training related to the project.
Wikisource is an online library project run by the Wikimedia Foundation (USA) dedicated to the free availability of knowledge and education. It has already been launched in 80 languages worldwide, and the process of expanding to more languages is ongoing. Punjabi Wikimedians from Eastern Punjab had already started working towards launching the Urdu Wikisource.
Providing information on the initiative, Aman Arora, volunteer Media In-charge of Punjabi Wikimedians User Group, stated that a two-day workshop was held in Patiala under the leadership of senior Wikimedian Satdeep Gill, IIIT-Hyderabad Program Officer Nitesh Gill, and group coordinator Kuldeep Singh Burjbhalaike.
Two volunteers from the organization Open Pecha, Tenzin Tsewang from Dehradun and Buddhist monk Choedup from Kangra participated in the workshop. Open Pecha is an organization working to promote, disseminate, and develop the Tibetan language on digital platforms. In June 2025, Open Pecha had initial discussions with Satdeep Gill about launching a Tibetan Wikisource. Later, in August 2025, during an international conference held in Kenya, Nitesh Gill invited Open Pecha members to participate in the Patiala workshop.
Tibetan Wikisource is yet to be launched, and Punjabi Wikimedians User Group is supporting Open Pecha to fulfil the requirements
At the end of the workshop, Tibetan representative Tenzin Tsewang said that this event marks the beginning of a connection between the Punjabi and Tibetan communities, which will serve as an example of collaborations among the two languages and cultures.
During the workshop, Satdeep Gill, Nitesh Gill, Kuldeep Singh Burjbhalaike, Charan Gill, Jassu Rumi, and Tamanpreet Kaur provided technical training to Wikimedians on working with Wikisource.
Author Balram Bodhi, who contributed six of his books to Wikisource, and volunteer Sonia Atwal, who made the highest number of contributions, were honored. Renowned singer Kusum Sharma entertained the guests with musical performance, while Sukhjeevan Singh from Geet Arts handled photography during the event.
On this occasion, Dr. Pawan Tibba, Kuldeep Singh, Gurtej Chauhan, Gurjeet Chauhan, Sahajpreet Kaur, Tarnpreet Kaur, Arsh Randiala, Amritpal Kaur, Satpal Dandiwal, and Gurlal Maan were also present.
