Hindi is Not Our National Language

According to the constitution that came into effect on 1950 January 26th, Hindi and English are the official languages of the Union. After 15 years (from 1965 January 26th onwards), Hindi would be the only official language.

Lal Bahadur Sastry introduced the bill The Official Languages Act, 1963 (which later amended in 1967), which provides for continuing the use of English in official work even after 25th January 1965.

In late 50s and early 60s, in Tamilnadu, there was a movement against Hindi. Tamilians did not like to be forced to learn Hindi. At that time, Nehru promised them that English would continue to be the official language, eventhough only one state (Tamilnadu) is asking for that. This was one reason, and not the only reason for the bill introduced by Lal Bahadur Sastry.

Debate in Rajya Sabha in September 1959

Debate in Parliament on the report of the Committee of Parliament on Official Languages. The then Prime Minister, Shri Jawahar Lal Nehru assured the House that neither will there be any hindrance on the use of English as an associate language nor will there be fixed any time limit for it. All the languages of India are equally respected and are our National Languages.

Neither the Constitution of India, nor any Indian law defines any National Language. If we take what Jawaharl Lal Nehru said in Rajya Sabha, then all the 22 scheduled languages can be considered as the National Languages. The 22 schedule languages defined by Indian Constitution are

Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.

Update: On Jan 25th 2010, Gujarath High court gave ruling that, Hindi is not our National language.

References:
http://india.gov.in/knowindia/official_language.php
http://rajbhasha.nic.in/eventseng.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_languages_of_India
The Insider by P.V.Narasimha Rao

How Incentives Matter

Live Mint has a nice article on the effects of different activities from the perspective of an economist.

Why death penalty for rape is not a good thing?

Why Mafia encourages prohibition of liquor?

Why Mumbai under world was badly hit after the liberalization?

A must read article
http://www.livemint.com/2010/01/05201536/How-incentives-matter.html

Sent by Ankur.

Media and Police

I was reading the book Ramoji - Chivaraku Migiledi (The one that lasts till the end). It was about Ramoji Rao, and was written by Cherukuri Chandramouli, son of Ramoji Rao's elder brother. In that book, Chandramouli criticized Ramoji Rao for using his news paper (Eenadu) and ETV Channels for his own development rather than for the people.

I agree that, Ramoji Rao has used Eenadu to promote one political party. We also have to see, how much he sacrificed the journalism values for that, and also when compared to other news papers and TV channels. If anyone compares all the media with a neutral mind, it would be very clear that Eenadu is the one which is giving more value to journalism, and is giving better news.

I am not saying that, since Eenadu is better comparatively others, we can ignore all the bad things done by that. When we have to criticize a news paper or TV channel, we should first criticize the one which is doing more harm to the society, rather than the one that is doing least harm to the society.

Dr.Jayaprakash Narayan almost said, if we close all the TV channels, state would become normal. It took me some time to realize this.

Specifically in the last one month, almost all (Telugu) TV channels raised sentiment issues, and showed bundhs, riots, and many other similar things extensively. But, they are not showing the steps that government is taking for more than a minute (except Rosaiah's speeches). When there was a bundh last time, police arrested 800 people as a precautionary measure in one day. I am wondering how many channels emphasised this? If they show riots in different areas for 12 hours (for the remaining 12 hours, there will be discussions on riots with different people), they hardly show a minute about the actions by the police on these riots. In a remote village, if one person throws a stone at a small shop, that gets more focus and time than 800 people getting arrested. If media gives enough importance to the police actions also, then all the riots would be stopped immediately.

If all these news channels are shut for atleast a few days, then the peace would restore automatically.

Call to ICICI Customer Care

Customer called ICICI Customer Care for some issue with the credit card. After resolving the issue, representative started her usual conversation.

Rep: Sir, You have an exclusive offer for your credit card. Shall I tell you the offer.

Customer: Go ahead.

Rep: We are offering Protection Plan for your credit card. In case, if you lose your credit card, we offer an insurance of upto Rs.50,000. blah. blah. blah. blah. It costs only Rs.99/month, and you get protection of upto Rs.4,50,000.

Customer: I am not interested.

Rep: May I know the reason?

Customer: I don't need it.

Rep: Sir, it is offering protection of upto Rs.4,50,000. May I know the reason why you are not interested?

Customer: I never lost any card till now. I don't need it.

Rep: Sir, if you lose it, then it would be helpful. May I know the reason why you are not interested?

Customer: I am not interested.

Rep: May I know the reason.

Customer: Standard Charterd Bank is offering life time free Credit Card. Can I ask the representative to meet you?

Rep: I am not interested.

Customer: May I know the reason?

Rep: I already have credit card.

Customer: This is life time free credit card. You don't need to pay anything.

Rep: I am not interested.

Customer: May I know the reason?

Rep: Thank you for calling ICICI.

Eventhough starting from Standard Charterd bank, this is fiction, I really want to talk like this whenever they ask me for reason for anything.

Airtel - Automatic Calls

I got an automatic call from Airtel. Generally, whenever I get an automatic call, I disconnect it immediately. But, I wanted to hear it once, and switched on speaker phone, and continued with my work. It said, "This is a pre-recorded message from Airtel. Press 1 to listen to Telugu, and Press 2 to listen to English, and Press 3 to listen to Hindi". I did not press anything. It repeated the message for 3 times, and then it got disconnected.

What I cannot understand is, why would the caller expect the receiver to press buttons? I have received many forward mails which asks to do not press any buttons if anybody calls you. I don't know what all can the caller do, if the receiver dials what he/she was asked. But, there is some fear factor, and not everyone is interested in dialing whatever the caller ask. If Airtel expects the receiver to dial, how many are going to dial? Cannot they select the language that the user selected last time while calling the customer care, or even alternate languages when they call the same number again.