HRD ministry proposes Sanskrit-speaking villages

To give a boost to Sanskrit as a spoken language, at least two Sanskrit-speaking villages need to be developed near central institutes promoting and preserving the language, Union human resource development minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ said on Thursday.

Chairing a meeting of heads of central language institutions under the HRD ministry, he said the focus was to promote all Indian languages, for which all vacancies need to be filled. All language institutions must be fundamentally strong and efficient, he said, before directing ministry officials to meet heads of these institutions on a regular basis. To promote Sanskrit, highly qualified teachers and professors should be engaged to give new dimensions to the language both at the national and international level, an official statement quoted him as saying.

The Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha in Delhi and the Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha in Tirupati are the three central institutes promoting the more than 3,500-year-old language.

Pokhriyal said there was need to discover innovative ways to promote languages. The literature in varied Indian languages must be translated to other languages so that it can be read by a wider cross-section of the people, he said. He said that in the coming years the ministry plans to establish Bhasha Bhawan, where all Indian language institutes will have an office. Minister of state for HRD, Sanjay Dhotre, attended the meeting.

First Published: Jun 13, 2019 23:03 IST