Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that Hindi is the most flourishing language and narrow-mindedness towards it is not right. Speaking in English and ignoring Hindi is a sign of mental slavery. He said that we should take pride in speaking, reading and writing in Hindi. Even the society shall have to come forward in raising the honour of Hindi.
Chouhan was addressing a gathering at the Hindi Divas programme by the Atal Behari Vajpayee Hindi University on the occasion of Hindi Divas at Samanvay Bhavan here on Thursday.
He further said that private universities will be directed to establish Hindi Departments. Making an announcement to organize state-level Hindi Sammelans in every two years, he said that state-level Hindi Sammelan will be organized on coming December 16-17. Intellectuals, individuals and institutions working towards promoting Hindi will be invited for the sammelan. Chouhan said that late Dushyant Kumar Tyagi was the founder of Hindi ghazals. State government will build the Dushyant Kumar Museum in his memory.
Chouhan said that legal measures will be taken to make Hindi names on shops and information plaques mandatory. A continuous campaign would have to be launched with the support of the society to apprise the new generation with the power, capacity and potential of Hindi language.
Chouhan conferred the National Maithilisharan Gupta Award, National Sharad Joshi Award and Hindi language Awards to prominent litterateurs and writers.
Malti Joshi, Vishwanath Tiwari and Kamal Kishore Goenka were conferred the National Maithilisharan Gupta Award. Gopal Chaturvedi, Suryabala lal, Prem Janmejay and Narmada Prasad Upadhyaya were conferred the National Sharad Joshi Award. The awards included Rs 2 lakhs each, letter of citation, shawl and coconut.
Information Technology Award was given to Microsoft India, Nirmal Verma Award to Tejendra Sharma, Father Kamil Bulke award to Hemraj Sundar, Gunakar Mule Award to Harimohan and Hindi Seva Samman to Professor Oken lego. Awards included Rs one lakh each, letter of citation, shawl and coconut.
Atal Behari Vajpayee Hindi Vishwavidyalaya Vice Chancellor Professor Ramdeo Bharadwaj gave the welcome address. Registrar SK Pare welcomed the guests. Bhopal MP Alok Sanjar, Principal Secretary Culture Manoj Shrivastava and a large number of Hindi lovers were present on the occasion.