Shillong: A two-day conference on Bharatiya Bhasha Pariwar (Indian language family) was jointly organised by the English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Regional Campus, Shillong, and the Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti, Union ministry of education.The event was held from Jan 29-30 and focused on ‘inter-linguistic understanding’.
Padma Shri awardee Chamu Krishna Shastry, chairman, Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti, quoted PM Narendra Modi in stating that “all mother tongues of India are national languages”.Though India has 1,369 languages, as per the 2011 census, and these languages are classified in various ways, such classifications should not be used for political division, but rather as a source of unity, he underscored.Prof Mousumi Guha Banerjee, director, EFLU, iterated the campus’s commitment to innovative teaching and research practices, emphasising interdisciplinary scholarship focused on the ethnicities, cultures, values, and knowledge systems of the northeast.She noted that the conference further strengthens inter-linguistic understanding.BDR Tiwari, commissioner and secretary to the govt of Meghalaya, emphasised that languages and cultures exist in an inter-related continuum.
