Port Blair, Feb 23: International Mother Language Day with focus on less spoken and endangered languages was observed in the College Auditorium by the staff and students of JNRM. Padmashree Shri. Naresh Chandra Lal was the Chief Guest. Capt.K.L.Mahajan, Dr. R.N.Rath and Shri. Abhijit Agarwal were the Guests of Honours.
The Chief Guest, in his address greeted the audience and called upon the need to preserve one’s Mother Language. He asked everyone to respect the language of other also. He said that many languages are spoken in his family as his ance3stors hailed from various parts of India. Addressing the students, Dr.N.Francis Xavier, Principal JNRM lauded the linguistic of JNRM where speakers of many rare and endangered languages are present.
He called upon the gathering to have love for their mother language. Dr.R.N Rath, Former HoD Pol.Science and Retd. Principal MGG College and OSD Law College spoke on the importance of preserving one’s culture through mother language. Shri. Abhijit Agarwal well known anchor and quiz master spoke on the importance of learning many languages and thus increasing one’s knowledge.
Dr. Jyotirmoy Roy Choudhary gave the historic background of the International Mother Language Day and described how on this day in 1952 the students of Dhaka University, demanding the preservation of Begali were cruelly massacred by the West Pakistani authorizes. He also sang a song by Rabindranath Tagore . Dr. Manju Nair, Associate Professor, Department of Geography spoke in Malayalam and sang a Bengali song. Mrs.Raj Mahajan spoke about the common relationship between all languages that keep us united. Dr.N.Laxmi also presented songs in Tamil, Telugu and Kanada.
Other languages like Tai, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Haryanvi, Karen, Bundel Khandi, Uraon, Khadia and Sadari werte also represented by their respective native speakers dressed in their traditional costumes. All the speakers took a pledge in their mother language that they would speak it atleast once a week and try their best to preserve it. Dr. Kandimuthu, Assistant Professor(Economics) proposed vote of thanks. The entire programme was conceived and co-ordinated by Dr. Anjani Kr. Srivastava, Assistant Professor, Department of Hindi.
