In a significant development, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Tuesday announced the extension of translation services in Parliament to six additional languages -- Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Manipuri, Urdu, and Sanskrit. Addressing the House, Birla stated that this move aims to enhance accessibility and representation for lawmakers who speak these languages.
Earlier, translation services were available in 10 regional languages, including Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu, alongside Hindi and English. With this latest addition, Parliament now offers translation support in a total of 16 languages.
"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," he 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 recognised, we aim to include them in the future as well," Om Birla said.
DMK MP raises objection
DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran objected to the Lok Sabha Speaker's announcement, asking why public money is being wasted on simultaneous translation in Sanskrit, which is spoken by only 70,000 people as per census. "It is not communicable in any of states in India. Nobody is speaking that. 2011 population survey said that only 73,000 people are supposed to be speaking. Why should the taxpayer's money be wasted because of your RSS ideologies?" Maran argued.
Reacting to this, the Speaker pulled him up and asked which country he was living in. "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.
(With ANI inputs)
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