NEW DELHI: After getting the UN to declare an International Yoga Day and include it in the UNESCO Cultural Heritage List, India is working to make Hindu one of the UN’s official languages.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday apprised the Lok Sabha on Wednesday that the government is making continuous efforts to popularise Hindi world over and “for the acceptance of Hindi as one of the UN official languages”.
"In this regard, one significant achievement has been the United Nations broadcasting its programmes on the UN Radio website in Hindi language also," Swaraj said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.
Swaraj is presently in AIIMS where she is recuperating after a successful Kidney Transplant.
At the last World Hindi Conference organised in Bhopal from 10-12 Sep 2015 one of the sessions of the Conference was devoted to the theme Videsh Niti Mein Hindi ("Hindi in Foreign Policy”) in which one of the recommendations reiterated was that Hindi should be made a UN language. A Committee has been established under the Chairmanship of External Affairs Minister for implementation of this and other recommendations made at the Conference.
On several occasions Indian leaders have delivered statements at the UN in Hindi including Prime Minister’s statement to the 69th UNGA in September 2014, the address of Prime Minister to the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015, the address to the 70th UNGA by External Affairs Minister in October 2015, and the address of External Affairs Minister to the 71st UNGA in September 2016. Necessary special arrangements were made for simultaneous interpretation of these statements into English by the Permanent Mission of India in New York.