Sanskrit speaking to be compulsory at Uttarakhand academy as state mulls channel in language

DEHRADUN: Come January 26, a Haridwar-based Uttarakhand Sanskrit Academy, in a first, has made it compulsory to speak the Sanskrit language on its campus. 

Anand Bhardwaj, secretary of the academy, said, "The step is being taken to promote the language and make students as well as faculty efficient speakers. We will provide training to the students as well as the faculty to use the language in everyday life."

Officials from the institution said that they have also adopted a village to train people to speak Sanskrit to promote the language.

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India has a total of seven villages where the locals communicate in the Sanskrit language for their day to day affairs. The most famous of these is Mattur village, 300 kilometres from Bengaluru in Karnataka.

"A team of experts has been formed to adopt one village at a time in Uttarakhand and teach the residents to use the Sanskrit language in their daily life. We hope to make the language as popular as Hindi in Uttarakhand," said Bhardwaj. 

The Uttarakhand government is also planning to launch a satellite Sanskrit TV channel titled 'SS- Sanskrit evam Sanskriti' to promote the language of Hindu religious scriptures.

The proposed channel is planned to be run by the academy only under Public-Private-partnership (PPP) model.

The channel will air programmes based on Sanskrit literature and Hindu mythology such as shows on Ramayana and Mahabharata along with Hindi and English subtitles. 

Apart from this, the channel will also be live streaming rituals in prominent shrines of Uttarakhand such as Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri.