PRESIDENT AND MINISTERS MAY HAVE TO GIVE HINDI SPEECHES

All dignitaries, including the President and ministers, may soon start giving speeches in Hindi if a parliamentary panel’s recommendations accepted by President Pranab Mukherjee are implemented.

Mukherjee has accepted most of the recommendations made in the ninth report of the Committee of Parliament on Official Language, submitted in 2011.

The panel’s recommendation that all dignitaries, especially those who can read and speak Hindi, may be requested to give their speech/statement in Hindi only, has been accepted, according to an official order.

The President has accepted many other recommendations, including making announcements on Indian aeroplanes in Hindi followed by English.

On flights, half of the reading material should consist of Hindi newspapers and magazines as “Hindi is grossly neglected by airlines”, as per the panel’s recommendation, accepted by the President. The ministry of civil aviation has been asked to ensure implementation of this recommendations.

Another recommendation that President Mukherjee accepted was that maximum usage of Hindi should be ensured on all tickets of Air India and Pawan Hans helicopters.

A recommendation favouring continuous availability of bilingual training material at the Mussoorie-based Lal Bahadur Shashtri National Administrative Academy, the premier institute to train civil servants including those in Indian Administrative Service (IAS), has also been accepted.

The panel had also asked the ministry of human resource development to make continual efforts to make Hindi compulsory in the curriculum.

Another accepted one is that universities and higher educational institutes situated in nonHindi speaking states, must give students an option to attempt their interviews and exams in Hindi.