President Pranab Mukherjee appeals for popularisation of Hindi

NEW DELHI: President Pranab Mukherjee today appealed for popularisation of Hindi, saying it has a special place among all languages in the country.

Addressing a function organised on the occasion of Hindi Divas, the President said efforts should be made to use simple words while transacting official business in the language for the benefit of common people.

"I appeal to everyone to give more emphasise on expansion and popularisation of Hindi, the official language of the country. Hindi has special place among all 21 scheduled languages in India," he said.

Quoting Rabindranath Tagore, the President said the nobel laureate had described all Indian languages as rivers and Hindi as a sea.

Mukherjee said he was please to know that the Official Language Department, which organised the event, will soon come out with Hindi website of all Central Ministries and Departments.

The President said the websites must have simple words and parlance while providing information on government programmes and projects so that common people are benefited from it.

Mukherjee said through this initiative of using Hindi, the government can reach to maximum number of people and help them avail development programmes.

The President presented Rajbhasa awards in various categories on the occasion of Hindi Divas.

He noted that the Constitution provides that Hindi language should be developed in such a way that it should reflect India's composite culture. Hindi has therefore, been entrusted with a very important role.

For democracy to be progressive, the use of Hindi language and regional languages will have to be increased, he said.

The President further said that the use of Hindi in Internet and mobile services has increased manifold and this would be helpful in providing efficient administration to the public.