Kolkata: 'Rajbhasha Pakhwada' observed at PIB

As part of the observance of ‘Rajbhasha Pakhwada’, a function was organized in PIB, office at Esplanade in Kolkata. 

Addressing the function, veteran Hindi journalist and former president of Kolkata Press Club, Raj Mitholia said, Hindi like a bonding or thread holds entire India – a multilingual country – together. Everyone should learn Hindi as it is the common lingua franca of India throughout its length and breadth.
 
Speaking on the occasion, Debanjan Chakrabarti, Addl. DG, PIB, Kolkata said, Hindi is spoken by more than 30 crores of people in India and 80 per cent of Indians understand it. 

But for Hindi, how people from different parts of India could have communicated among themselves, he asked. 

Chakrabarti said that Hindi has been recognized as one of the official languages in 19 countries in the world. 

He added that the number of Hindi speaking people in the world is much more than English speaking people.

Next to Chinese Mandarin, Hindi is the language spoken by second largest number of people in the world, he added.
 
Director of PIB, Kolkata H.R. Keshavamurthy in his speech said, Hindi acts as a cultural bridge in a multi-cultured  and multi-lingual society like India and other than Hindi, no other Indian language can perform this role as no other Indian language is understood and spoken by so many people as Hindi is.  
 
As part of the observance of Pakhwada, PIB, Kolkata is organizing several workshops and seminars on use of Hindi as well as short story, poem, debate competitions in Hindi and competition on English-Hindi glossary of official words and phrases.