Anand extends support to Hindi meet in New York next year

New York, Sep 20 (UNI) Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma has announced that India will extend all cooperation to a proposed international Hindi conference scheduled here for the middle of next year.

''We will help you in whatever way we can,'' he told a meeting organised yesterday at local Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.

Mr Sharma, who took time out from his busy schedule at UN-related meetings to attend the meeting, addressed the audience in Hindi.

''Our culture is great and we have inherited it from our ancestors,'' said the minister, who was invited by local Bhavan officials, when they met him in New Delhi. ''Bhavan is doing a yeoman service in propagating such culture,'' he added.

Not only Hindi but other Indian languages should also be developed and propagated overseas as expatriates speak other languages also, Mr Sharma said.

Recalling his last week's visit to Brazil, Mr Sharma noted it would be surprising to say that Yoga and Ayurveda are highly popular Indian disciplines there.

He acknowledged, the popularity of English in India is unrivaled.

''The number of our English speakers is more than the entire population of the United States. But we should not feel ashamed to speak Hindi like the way they speak their languages in China, Japan and Korea,'' Mr Sharma observed.

Mr Sharma also called for the propagation of Asian values.

''This is the Asian century. And India is going to lead the rest in the continent to make the century that way,'' he said.

He said of the major overseas Hindi meets like the one planned in New York, regional conferences would be held in countries like Japan and the Netherlands.

Dr Panchapakesa Jayaraman, executive director of the local Bhavan, appealed to the audience to make the New York event, likely to be held in July, a grand success. Among those present at the podium were Dr Navin C Mehta and Deputy Consul General A R Ghanashyam.

A brief interaction with Indian news media was held immediately after the minister's meeting, in which he expressed optimism that Shashi Tharoor of India, one of the candidates running for the post of UN Secretary-General, would win.

''We have requested all our friends to support our candidate,'' he said, referring to last week's prime ministerial meetings with various heads of state and government in Cuba, where he attended a Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit.

Mr Sharma rejected suggestions that the prime minister should have attended the ongoing UN session instead of the NAM summit, which he termed as ''equally important'' as India was a founding member of the movement.

UNI XC AD RAI1327