New Delhi: On the occasion of National Hindi Day, the Union Home Minister Amit Shah has stressed upon the need to have a single unifying language across the country. He said that Hindi will fulfil this role.
Article 343 of the Indian constitution lays down that the official language of the Union of India shall be Hindi in the Devnagiri script. In addition to it, The Official Languages Act, 1963 permits the continuation of English along with Hindi as the official languages of the Union of India in perpetuity till the status of the former is revoked.
According to the data as per Census 2011, 43.63% of the Indian population has listed Hindi as their mother tongue.
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The issue assumes significance as vociferous protests have become the norm in many parts of the country. Recently new notifications had to be issued to conduct various competitive exams in the regional languages after pressure groups in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka protested against the exams being conducted only in Hindi and English.
The Department of Official languages, Union Ministry of Home Affairs has been issuing instructions to promote the language across all government departments in the recent past.