Patil asks for gaining proficiency in one Indian language apart from Hindi

New Delhi, Sep 14 (ANI): President Pratibha Devisingh Patil on Wednesday made a fervent appeal for increased use of Hindi and other regional languages in day-to-day official work, and-for gaining proficiency in at least one Indian language in addition to one's mother tongue.

President Patil, who was the chief guest at the Hindi Day celebration here, while addressing on the occasion recalled the critical role played by Hindi during the period of freedom struggle, and as a link-language for the widest reach of welfare programmes in the post-independence period.

"It was on this day that the Constituent Assembly had decided to accord to Hindi the status of Official Language of the Union. The country is implementing a large number of welfare schemes with the objective of inclusive economic development and equitable social structure," said President Patil.

"It will be possible to ensure an effective dissemination of the benefits of the welfare schemes to the citizens through the medium of Hindi, which is either spoken or understood in most parts of the country. The linguistic diversity of the country makes it imperative that we strive for the enrichment of all regional languages," she added.

The President urged for more organized endeavours to undertake translation of celebrated works in Hindi into regional languages and vice-versa on a mission basis. She exhorted collaborative projects in this direction with the Departments of Regional Languages in various Universities of the country.

Giving a clarion call for accelerated development of software applications in Hindi, President Patil underlined the need for facilitating the access of the citizens of the country to latest IT-tools like 'Shrutlekhan' (conversion from speech to text), and 'Machine-Assisted Translation' (MANTRA) for Hindi-users to ensure speeder spread of Hindi.

The President felicitated the national-level award-winners on this occasion. She honoured 43 government organisations and 14 writers with special rewards and cash prize for promotion of Hindi language. (ANI)