Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Tuesday announced the extension of translation services to six new languages in the Parliament including Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Manipuri, Urdu, and Sanskrit.
The translation services were available in 10 languages including Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu, in addition to Hindi and English.
“Now, we have also included six more languages–Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Manipuri, Urdu, and Sanskrit. Along with this, for the additional 16 languages, as human resources become available, we are making efforts to provide simultaneous translations in those as well,” Birla said.
“India’s parliamentary system is a democratic framework that provides translations in so many languages. When I discussed at the global level that we are making this effort in 22 languages in India, everyone on the international platforms praised it. Our effort is that, for the 22 languages that are officially recognized, we aim to include them in the future as well,” Om Birla said.
However, DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran objected to Lok Sabha Speaker’s announcement.
He questioned the expenditure of public funds on simultaneous translation for Sanskrit, a language spoken by only 70,000 people according to census data.
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Reacting to this, the Speaker said, “This is India, whose “Mool Bhasha” has been Sanskrit. That’s why we mentioned 22 languages, not just Sanskrit. Why did you have an issue with Sanskrit?” Birla asked.
