8th World Hindi Conf in New York from July 13-15

New Delhi, Apr 17: The 8th World Hindi Conference(WHC) for popularisation of Hindi in the world will be held in New York from July 13-15.

A steering Committee, comprising of 33 non-official and 14 official members, has been constituted under the Chairmanship of Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma, a spokesman of the Ministry said today.

Eleven Sub-committees have also been formed to deliberate on various aspects of the conference and submit their recommendations to the Steering Committee.

In New York, an Organising Committee has been formed under the chairmanship of Dr Navin Mehta, Chairman, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, New York, which is the associate organisation for organising the Conference.

Indian Ambassador to the US is the Patron and Consul General of India in New York, the Advisor of the Committee.

The inaugural ceremony will be held at the UN Headquarters which will be followed by an academic session on 'Hindi in the UN' at the same venue.

The programme of the Conference includes other academic sessions, cultural programmes, exhibitions etc.

The beginning of the World Hindi Conference was made more then 30 years ago by the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi when the first World Hindi Conference was held under the auspices of Rastrabhasha Prachar Samiti, Wardha, in Nagpur from January 10-12, 1975.

Six Conferences have been held since then, the last one in Suriname in June 2003.

The Ministry of External Affairs is the nodal Ministry for organising these Conferences.

UNI