International - India & World   

World Hindi meet opens on Friday

New York: The Eighth World Hindi Conference will begin here on Friday to give a new direction to propagation of the language.

The three-day conference will focus on strengthening the heritage of Hindi besides providing a forum to more than 1,000 scholars and supporters of the language to present their ideas about what needs to be done to systematically advance its cause.

Union Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma will inaugurate the conference — being held for the first time in the United States — at the United Nations headquarters.

An academic session on “Hindi in the United Nations” will be held at the U.N. base while the rest of the sessions and the closing ceremony will take place at a different venue in downtown Manhattan. The conference is expected to adopt a series of resolutions.

“The fact that the inauguration is being held at the United Nations is highly significant as it would give fillip to the demand that Hindi be made one of the official languages of the world body,” Indian Consul-General Neelam Deo told reporters here. At present, English, French, Russian, Chinese and Arabic are the official languages of the United Nations.

There would be nine sessions to discuss various aspects, including roles of information technology, translation and movies in the propagation of Hindi. Around 450 Indian delegates and another 250 from the United States would attend the conference. Representatives from other countries, including Britain, Germany and Guyana, would participate.

The conference, organised by the External Affairs Ministry and the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, will honour 40 people for their outstanding contributions. The important aspect of the meet was that it would provide an opportunity to Hindi lovers to discuss the difficulties they faced, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Executive Director P. Jayaraman said. — PTI

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Held in Sydney
China executes top drug official
Norwegian envoy to visit Kilinochchi
White House reviewing Iraq policy
Now a British move to cut methane emissions by changing the cow’s diet
NAM: Iran hails India’s stand
World Hindi meet opens on Friday

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu