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Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday asked Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin to commence engineering and medical education in Tamil in the state. Targeting the chief minister on the language issue, especially given Stalin's opposition to Hindi, Shah said the Narendra Modi government effected changes and now ensured that the CISF aspirants could write the exam in their respective regional languages. "Now the PM Narendra Modi government has ensured that the exam can be written in Tamil too," the home minister said, speaking at the 56th Raising Day of the CISF at RTC Thakkolam in Ranipet, about 70 km from Chennai. He further said, "I appeal to the Tamil Nadu chief minister to start the engineering and medical education in Tamil in the state for the benefit of students." He said Tamil Nadu's culture played a vital role in strengthening India's cultural stream. "Be it administrative reforms, attaining spiritual heights, education or the unity and integrity of the nation - Tamil N
Forty per cent of the global population does not have access to education in a language they speak or understand, according to UNESCO's Global Education Monitoring (GEM) team. Despite countries' growing understanding of the role of home language, policy uptake remains limited. Implementation challenges include limited teacher capacity to use home languages, unavailability of materials in home languages and community opposition, it said. In some low- and middle-income countries, this figure rises to 90 per cent. More than a quarter of a billion learners are affected, GEM officials said, recommending nations to implement multilingual education policies and practices with the goal of creating educational systems that benefit all learners. The team, which has come up with a report titled "Languages matter: Global guidance on multilingual education", noted that as migration increases, linguistic diversity is becoming a global reality and classrooms with learners from diverse language ...
President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order designating English as the official language of the United States, according to the White House. The order will allow government agencies and organizations that receive federal funding to choose whether to continue to offer documents and services in language other than English, according to a fact sheet about the impending order. Trump had been expected to sign the order Friday. But by Friday night, the White House had not announced the order had been signed and did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. The executive order will rescind a mandate from former President Bill Clinton that required the government and organisations that received federal funding to provide language assistance to non-English speakers. Designating English as the national language promotes unity, establishes efficiency in government operations, and creates a pathway for civic engagement, according to the White House. More than 30
Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserted on Thursday that the recognition of Pali as a classical language honours the great heritage of Lord Buddha, as he took swipe at past Congress governments for its neglect of India's cultural legacy after Independence. Speaking at a programme on the occasion of International Abhidhamma Divas, Modi said while every nation associates its heritage with its identity, India was left far behind. Invaders tried to erase India's identity before its Independence, and those suffering from "slave mindset" did so afterwards, he said, adding that an ecosystem captured the country which took it in an direction opposite to its its heritage. He said his government's policies and programmes have been guided by the teachings of Lord Buddha, reiterating that the world plagued by instability and insecurity can find solution to its problems in his teachings. World can find solution not in "yuddh" (war) but in Buddha, and it should learn from his teachings to pave the
The demand for grant of official language status to Bhojpuri, arguably the most widely spoken dialect in Bihar, has intensified with the opposition Mahagathbandhan strongly coming out in support of it in the state. Senior leaders of the RJD, Congress and CPI(ML) Liberation, constituents of the Mahagathbandhan, said they would raise the issue in Parliament. The old demand got a fresh impetus after the Union Cabinet's recent decision to accord classical language status to five more languages - Marathi, Bengali, Pali, Prakrit and Assamese. The number of such languages now is 11, since Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia got the tag earlier. CPI(ML) Liberation's Lok Sabha MP Sudama Prasad said, The language is spoken widely in districts such as Bhojpur, Rohtas, Kaimur, Buxar, Saran, East Champaran, West Champaran, Gopalganj, Siwan and Jehanabad in Bihar, and several parts of Jharkhand. Why is the Centre silent on inclusion of Bhojpuri in the Eighth Schedule of the ...
Academics and Bengali identity advocacy groups have hailed the decision of the Centre to accord classical language status to Bengali language expressing hope that it will facilitate in greater use of the language in official communication and examinations. Eminent indologist and linguist Nrisingo Prasad Bhaduri said he hoped that after the honour, at all India level, there will be greater use of the language in competitive examinations, more use of synonyms of familiar English terms in science and economics and present day students will feel encouraged to use these Bengali synonyms in their exams. Thanking West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Bhaduri said after he and other academics drew her attention to the fact that Bengali was not accorded classical language status despite having thousands of years of history from the day of its origin and evolution. "The state government submitted voluminous documents in this regard very promptly and the recognition came in 6-7 months ...
Digi Yatra, which seeks to provide seamless movement at airport check points, will be made available in regional and international languages, according to a senior official. The facility is now available at 24 airports and is expected to be rolled out at 4-5 more airports in the coming months. Digi Yatra Foundation CEO Suresh Khadakbhavi on Tuesday said a pilot project is likely by June next year for connecting two countries with Digi Yatra. Under the pilot project, foreign citizens will be able to use Digi Yatra. Speaking at the CAPA India Digital Aviation Summit in the national capital, Khadakbhavi said a campaign will be started to sensitise passengers about the facility. While Digi Yatra is slowly gaining traction, concerns have been expressed in various quarters about the privacy of data of the passengers. He said Digi Yatra will be made available in regional and international languages. Based on Facial Recognition Technology (FRT), Digi Yatra provides for contactless, seam
Asking ChatGPT a health-related question that included evidence was seen to confuse the AI-powered bot and affect its ability to produce accurate answers, according to new research. Scientists were "not sure" why this happens, but they hypothesised that including the evidence in the question "adds too much noise", thereby lowering the chatbot's accuracy. They said that as large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT explode in popularity, there is potential risk to the growing number of people using online tools for key health information. LLMs are trained on massive amounts of textual data and hence are capable of producing content in the natural language. The researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and The University of Queensland (UQ), Australia, investigated a hypothetical scenario of an average person asking ChatGPT if 'X' treatment has a positive effect on condition 'Y'. They looked at two question formats - either just a question
Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Election Commission on Friday asked parties and their leaders to refrain from seeking votes on the basis of caste, religion and language, and not insult the devotee-deity relation or make any suggestion of a divine censure. In an advisory warning the parties, candidates and star campaigners of stern action for any violation of Model Code of Conduct instead of the previous practice of only 'moral censure', the poll panel also said that temples, mosques, churches, gurdwaras or any other place of worship should not be used for poll propaganda or electioneering. It said that the star campaigners and candidates who have received notices in past will face stern action for repeat violation of model code. The advisory comes days before the model code is expected to come into effect with the announcement of the Lok Sabha and four state assembly polls later this month, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar had recently emphasised that political parties sho