Hindi is of vital importance for UN, says Union Minister Savitri Thakur

New York: Hindi, with a speaker base of 600 million, is of vital importance for the United Nations, a top official at the world organisation has said.

The Permanent Mission of India to the UN commemorated World Hindi Day at its premises here on Thursday with the theme of ‘Multilingualism and the Promotion of Hindi abroad’.

Minister of State for Women and Child Development Savitri Thakur, the Guest of Honour at the event, in her address highlighted that India has a multilingual and multicultural social fabric.

She noted that several initiatives are being undertaken to make Hindi a more popular language and recognition by the United Nations will make it a global language, according to a press release by the Mission.  UN Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications Melissa Fleming said that Hindi with a speaker base of 600 million is of vital importance for the United Nations.

She noted that the 'Hindi@UN' project and various social media updates are bringing activities of the United Nations closer to Hindi speakers.

Permanent Representative of India to the UN Ambassador P Harish underscored that Hindi has been added to the list of non-official languages in the United Nations.

Further, in the United Nations, India contributed around 7 million dollars to promote UN News in Hindi.

Other speakers at the event included prominent academics, who shared their experiences of promoting Hindi in the US.

They underlined that in an increasingly globalised world, multilingualism, media and modern technology can work towards expanding Hindi content across social media and digital platforms to increase its accessibility, especially among the youth, the release added.

The Government of India initiated Vishwa Hindi Diwas (World Hindi Day) on January 10, 2006 to strengthen efforts to promote and popularise Hindi on a global scale.

Since then, World Hindi Day has been commemorated across the globe every year.

In November last year, the Permanent Mission of India to the UN had organized a special event in the UN headquarters to commemorate Hindi Diwas.

The event was attended by a delegation of Members of Parliament from India that was visiting the UN at the time.

The leader of the delegation Member of Parliament Birendra Prasad Baishya highlighted the popular appeal of Hindi in different countries during his remarks at the event Friday that was attended by several UN Ambassadors and officials.