THE LANGUAGE FRIENDSHIP BRIDGE - INTERNATIONAL
News: India
to bridge language gap with neighbours
What's in the news?
● Looking
to expand its cultural footprint in nations with whom it has historical ties,
including those in its immediate neighbourhood, India is planning to create a
pool of experts in languages spoken in countries like Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan and Indonesia to facilitate better
people-to-people exchanges.
Key takeaways:
● The
Indian Council for Cultural Relations
(ICCR) has envisaged a special project called ‘The Language Friendship
Bridge’, which plans to train five to 10 people in the official languages of
each of these countries.
The Language Friendship Bridge:
Aim:
● To
train five to 10 people in the
official languages of each of the notified countries.
Chosen languages:
● The
ICCR has zeroed in on 10 languages -
Kazakh, Uzbek, Bhutanese, Ghoti (spoken in Tibet), Burmese, Khmer (spoken in
Cambodia), Thai, Sinhalese and Bahasa (spoken in both Indonesia and Malaysia).
Nodal agency: Indian Council for
Cultural Relations (ICCR)
Discussing with Universities:
● The
cultural body is in discussion with
universities and institutes as well as experts offering foreign language
courses in the country on the modalities of implementing the project.
● Among
those being consulted are the foreign language departments at the Jawaharlal
Nehru University, Delhi University, Hyderabad’s English and Foreign Languages
University, Banaras Hindu University, and the Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi
Vishwa Vidyalaya at Wardha.
Go back to basics:
Indian Council for Cultural Relations:
● It
was founded in 1950 by Maulana Abul
Kalam Azad who was India's 1st Education Minister.
Ministry:
● It
is an autonomous body under the administrative control of the Ministry of External Affairs.
Objectives:
● To
actively participate in formulation and implementation of programmes and
policies relating to India’s external cultural relations.
● To
foster and strengthen mutual understanding and cultural relations between India
and other countries.
To promote cultural exchanges and develop relations
with other countries and people, national and international organizations in
the field of Culture.