From the Monsoon Session of the Parliament, beginning on 18 July, members of the Rajya Sabha can speak in any of the 22 scheduled languages, with the Secretariat arranging simultaneous interpretation facility for five more languages viz., Dogri, Kashmiri, Konkani, Santhali and Sindhi, the Rajya Sabha Secretariat announced.
Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu had announced that measures would be taken to enable the members speak in any of the 22 languages listed in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution.
Speaking in mother tongue enabled better expression of thoughts, he said. In pursuance of this assurance, the Rajya Sabha Secretariat made efforts to identify, select and train interpreters in the five new languages.
Conveying his sense of urgency for promoting the use of mother tongue, the Rajya Sabha Chairman himself inducted the panel of new interpreters today by awarding them certificates of completion of training and eligibility.
Speaking on the occasion, Naidu said: “I have always felt that mother tongue is the natural medium to convey our feelings and thoughts without any retention. In a multilingual city such as the Parliament, members must not feel handicapped or inferior to others due to language constraints.”
Of the 22 scheduled languages, Rajya Sabha has earlier established Simultaneous Interpretation Service for 12 languages viz., Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.
For five languages viz., Bodo, Maithili, Manipuri, Marathi and Nepali, interpreters of Lok Sabha are being deployed. To overcome the difficulty in identifying suitable candidates for simultaneous interpretation of Dogri, Kashmiri, Konkani, Santhali and Sindhi, the Rajya Sabha Secretariat took the help of language departments of universities, and missions of respective states in Delhi.
“That’s why I was keen to have simultaneous interpretation facility for all the 22 scheduled languages. I’m glad this is becoming a reality from the coming Monsoon Session of Parliament, he said.