Question : COMMITTEE ON THE INCLUSION OF HINDI IN U.N.

(a) the efforts made by the Committees/Sub-committees/Core Group constituted for making Rajbhasha Hindi as the language of the United Nations and the progress made as a result thereof;

(b) the details of the Committees/Core Group including the total expenditure incurred in this regard;

(c) the number of delegations including the names of representatives in each of the delegation visited abroad during the last three years and till date for promotion of Rajbhasha Hindi in foreign countries and the success achieved as a result thereof; and

(d) the total expenditure incurred on their visits?

THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS (SHRI ANAND SHARMA)

(a) & (b) Following a decision taken in the 26th meeting of the Kendriya Hindi Samiti held on 6th September 2002, under the chairmanship of the Hon’ble Prime Minister, a high level committee under the chairmanship of EAM on Hindi in the UNO was constituted on 26th February, 2003. A meeting of this committee was held on 29th July, 2003. Thereafter, a follow-up sub-committee on Hindi in UNO was formed under the chairmanship of the then Minister of State. A meeting of this committee was held on 22nd August, 2003. Subsequently, a core group under the chairmanship of Additional Secretary (Administration) in the Ministry of External Affairs was formed. Meetings of this core group were held on 17th October, 2003 and 10th February 2004.

In the meeting of 29th July, 2003, mentioned above, the idea of preparing an Advocacy Paper was mooted. The objective of having an Advocacy Paper was to present India’s case with regard to introducing Hindi in the UN and mobilising world opinion on the issue. The task of preparing this Paper was first assigned to Shri Nirmal Pathak, a journalist from `Dainik Jagaran`. Later, he was replaced by Shri Akhilesh Suman of ‘Rashtriya Sahara’ in November, 2004. Shri Suman submitted a draft Advocacy Paper in May, 2005. This was supplemented with further inputs by the Ministry.

Subsequently, it was decided to bring the subject of Hindi in UNO under the purview of the follow-up committee of World Hindi Conference (WHC) which was set up in 2003 after the VII WHC under the chairmanship of the then MOS with the objective of ensuring follow-up action on the Resolution on the subject passed during the WHC. Meetings of this Committee were held on 8.1.2004, 8.6.2005 and 1.6.2006 and discussed modalities of achieving the objective of introducing Hindi at the UN.

The expenditure incurred on organising the meeting of the follow up committee on World Hindi Conference held on 8th June 2005 was Rs. 54,088/- and on the meeting held on 1st June 2006 was Rs. 26,730/-.

As the other committees mentioned above consisted of only the officers of the Ministry, no expenditure was incurred on the meetings of these committees.

(c) & (d) Details are given in Annexure.