In 2010, the Union ministry of culture founded the platform, Indian Literature Abroad (ILA), to project India’s literary canon on the world stage. It aimed to translate works written in 24 languages in India into eight foreign languages. But when the ministry refused to release the promised funds, ILA slipped into irrelevance. The project was later transferred to the Akademi, following a suggestion by the founder-director of Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) Namita Gokhale, who had once served as a member of the Centre’s committee to anchor the programme. Along with Neeta Gupta and Shuchita Mital, Gokhale co-founded Yatra Books in 2005. Its core activity was translations—it published 500 titles in English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Telugu, Bengali and Urdu before it wound up in 2021.