International webinar organized on linguistic issues in Northeast India

DIBRUGARH: In its continuous strive and effort to facilitate and promote perpetual teaching-learning activities during the COVID-19 pandemic and to keep connected with different faculty, scholars and students of different educational institutions of the country and abroad, the Department of Political Science, DHSK College, Dibrugarh, with technical support from the Library and Information Science Professionals' Association (LISPA), organized an international webinar on 'Sixth Schedule and Linguistic Issues of Tribal in Northeast India'.

The prime motive to organize such a webinar, according to the organizers, was to encourage the teaching and student fraternity to keep making every effort in learning and imparting knowledge despite the current pandemic situation that has completely held up the conventional arrangement of education.

The programme started with the formal inauguration of the webinar by Principal of DHSK College, Dr Sashi Kanta Saikia. Dr Saikia welcomed the participants and expressed his appreciation to the Department of Political Science for organizing such an important and relevant webinar. He also thanked the resource persons, Dr. Mark W. Post of Sydney University and Prof. Jangkhongam Doungel of Mizoram University, for participating in the webinar as resource persons.

The two sessions of the webinar were chaired by the coordinator of the webinar, Dr Lamkholal Doungel who set the house in motion with a brief keynote address elucidating and enlightening upon the theme of the webinar. Describing the increasing political anxiety among the tribal of the region, Dr. Doungel said, "Today we are real-time witnesses to this volatile political situation of the region in which almost all the communities are demanding a separate geopolitical arrangement for themselves and there is no sign of decline in sight." He also said that many languages and dialects of tribes of the region were fast disappearing. Many in the list of endangered languages of UNESCO are from Northeast India.

The first speaker of the day was Dr. Mark W. Post from Sydney University who is a lecturer in Linguistics Faculty of Arts & Social Science, University of Sydney, Australia. He deeply dealt with the topic on 'Northeast Indian Linguistic Diversity in National and Global Contexts'. Dr. Post was also Secretary, the Northeast Indian Linguistics Society (NEILS) for more than 10 years.

The second speaker of the second session, Prof. Jangkhongam Doungel of Mizoram University painstakingly and exhaustively spoke on the theme 'Sixth Schedule: Origin, Growth and Issues'. The end of both sessions was marked by an active interactive session between participants and resource persons.

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