The Department of Official Language, Ministry of Home Affairs organized the Joint Regional Official Language Conference of South and South Western Regions at Mysuru on 04 January, 2025 at the premises of Karnataka State Open University, Mysuru.
The ceremony was presided over by Hon’ble Minister of State for Home Affairs, Shri Nityanand Rai. The Chief Guest of the ceremony was Hon’ble Shri Arif Mohammad Khan, Governor of Bihar, who was till recently the Governor of Kerala.
Also present on the dais were honourable Member of Parliament from Mysore, Wadiyar, Shri Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Ji;
Secretary, Department of Official Language, Smt. Anshuli Arya and Joint Secretary, Department of Official Language, Dr. Meenakshi Jolly Ji; Vice Chancellor, Karnataka State Open University, Mysore, Prof. Sharanappa V Halse; Vice Chancellor, Central University, Thiruvarur and TOLIC’ Chairman , Thiruvarur Prof. M Krishnan; CMD, Electronics Corporation of India Limited, Bengaluru, Shri Anurag Kumar;
Central Silk Board, Shri P. Shivkumar; Executive Director, Punjab National Bank, Shri Vinod Kumar and senior officers of various offices of the South and South West regions of India were also present at the event. The distinguished guests on the dais honoured the Government officials and employees of various offices of the Central Government, Government Undertakings and Banks who did excellent work for the promotion and propagation of the Official Language Hindi by giving them shields and certificates. A total of 32 awards were given on this occasion. In the welcome address, the Secretary, Department of Official Language said that a huge difference has come in the country in the last ten years. Ideas like freedom from every thought of slavery and pride for heritage are bringing a radical change in the thinking of the country. We all are aware that the target is to make the country developed by 2047. For which the country is taking steps in every field. Pride in one’s language is a part of the Panch Prana of the Hon’ble Prime Minister. We all know that our Hon’ble Prime Minister mostly delivers his speech in Hindi in the country and abroad. Similarly, the Hon’ble Home Minister also does all his work in Hindi. Under his leadership, work is being done in Hindi in the Home Ministry. Similarly, more and more work is being done in Hindi in many ministries under the leadership of Hon’ble Ministers.
Along with Hindi, attention is also being paid to the development of all regional languages.
Governor (Bihar) Shri Arif Mohammad Khan Ji said in his address that all the languages that are in the world are the dialects of Mother Saraswati and these dialects are the heritage of our culture and civilization. Being an independent nation, being a hub of culture of knowledge, no foreign language should be used for communication. We should learn each other’s languages. India’s civilization is the only one that is known for knowledge and wisdom. There is no case of competition between Indian languages.
Our freedom fighters used to go to learn Hindi to join the national movement.
The Official Language Department has done an important job of connecting Hindi with technology and the harmony it is establishing with Indian languages is incomparable. Digital dictionary ‘Hindi Shabd Sindhu’ and Bhartiya Bhasha Anubhag are important projects in this direction. He informed that more than five lakh words have been included in Hindi Shabd Sindhu, out of which about twenty-five thousand words are from Indian languages and this figure is constantly increasing.
While felicitating the institutions engaged in the honour of the nation, Minister of State for Home Affairs Shri Nityanand Rai ji in his speech highlighted the multifaceted status of Hindi in the country and the world and said that we are determined to make Hindi a language of dialogue. In South India, where Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam languages are spoken, Hindi becomes an important medium which provides people an opportunity to participate in national and international dialogue. It is also a medium to strengthen national unity.
The Department of Official Language is working on technological development which includes Kanthastha, Leela App, e-Maha Shabd Sindhu etc.
Shri Nityanand Rai also said that the formation of ‘Bhartiya Bhasha Anubhag’ is an ambitious project of the Department of Official Language to ensure a robust universal translation system at the level of the Central Government. Through this, any letter in any Indian language can be translated instantly into multiple languages. This will also enable correspondence between the Central Government and the State Governments in 15 Indian languages in their first official language.
In order to make Hindi more acceptable and truly pan-Indian, it is necessary that we include words from the regional languages of our country in the Hindi dictionary. It will be beneficial for Hindi to use the repository of its sister languages as these words are close to the nature of our language. In this way, it will be easy to adopt the words which have come into Hindi from various local languages in other languages as well and as a result not only Hindi but other languages will also become rich and strong. The massive digital dictionary ‘Hindi Shabd Sindhu’ being prepared by the Official Language Department is an effort to make this vision come true. Keeping in view the changing circumstances and infinite possibilities in the field of knowledge and science, we need to develop Hindi as such a language
