November 19 should be celebrated as Urdu Day:Mishra

Patna, Jan 9 (UNI) Former Bihar Chief Minister and senior JD(U) leader Jagannath Mishra urged Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to declare November 19 as 'Urdu Day' in the state.

Speaking to newspersons here, Dr Mishra said Urdu was declared second official language of the state under Article 345 of the Constitution by the then Bihar Governor Dr A R Kidwai on November 19,1980. He added that the Nitish Kumar government has paid keen attention towards the promotion of Urdu language in the state and has recruited Urdu translators.

''Urdu is a lingua-franca of a huge section of the world community irrespective of differences and it must not be associated with a particular community or caste,'' he said adding ''It was a popular medium of expression during the freedom struggle and had served the country as the offical language during later Mughal and British period.'' ''It is an important language of the country. Therefore, we request the Chief Minister to redress the grievances of such an important language by working on its development,'' he said yesterday.

He also demanded immediate recruitment of Urdu translators and assistant translators on the vaccant seats in various departments of the state government as well as appointment of a Urdu Director in the state languge department.

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