Shillong, Aug 30: The English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU) regional campus at Shillong, in collaboration with the Bhartiya Bhasha Samiti (BBS), Union Ministry of Education, organised a two-day national conference on ‘Bhartiya Bhasha Pariwar: Strengthening National Unity through Linguistic and Literary Exchange’ on August 28-29.
Mousumi Guha Banerjee, Director of EFLU Shillong, gave the welcome address while Padma Shri Chamu Krishna Shashtri, Chairman of BBS, shared a video message, emphasising that all mother tongues are national languages.
He noted that the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 actively promotes India’s linguistic heritage, affirming that national pride stands above linguistic pride, diversity is beauty and unity is strength.
Pinakeswar Mahanta, Director of NIT Meghalaya, drew attention to endangered languages in Meghalaya and proposed strategies for their revitalisation, emphasising community participation, documentation and integration of local languages into education and public life.
HK Mishra, Department of Hindi at NEHU Shillong, spoke about India’s strength as a multilingual and multicultural country, where languages unite the nation in a significantly strong manner. He emphasised that India’s multicultural democracy is unique, marking it as a distinct democracy.
The conference included special lectures, technical sessions and paper presentations focusing on linguistic diversity, literary exchange, policy implementation and language preservation.
