Rajya Sabha members can now speak in any Indian language

New Delhi, July 10: From the forthcoming Monsoon Session of Parliament, Rajya Sabha MPs will be able to speak in the House in any of the 22 Indian languages listed in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution, Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu said on Tuesday. The Rajya Sabha Secretariat has arranged for simultaneous interpretation facility for five more languages - Dogri, Kashmiri, Konkani, Santhali and Sindhi. Naidu formally inducted the interpreters for these languages on Tuesday.

Of the 22 scheduled languages, Rajya Sabha has earlier established Simultaneous Interpretation Service for 12 languages -- Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. For five languages - Bodo, Maithili, Manipuri, Marathi and Nepali, interpreters of Lok Sabha are being deployed.

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 setting such as Parliament, members must not feel handicapped or inferior to others due to language constraints." "That's why I was keen to have simultaneous interpretation facility for all the 22 Scheduled languages. I am glad this is becoming a reality from the coming Monsoon Session," he added. An official said that the Rajya Sabha Secretariat has made "special efforts" to identify, select and train interpreters in these five languages and took help of various universities and missions of the states in New Delhi. (IANS)