NEW YORK (TIP): Ambassador Riva Ganguly Das, Consul General of India in New York inaugurated the [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]3rd International Hindi Conference[/inlinetweet], America at the Indian Consulate, April 29.

Speaking on the occasion, she appreciated the efforts of the organizers, particularly of the conference coordinator Ashok Ojha for organizing in a short time a conference at which a number of scholars from India are also participating, besides a large number of Hindi scholars, Hindi lovers and Hindi promotes.

Ambassador Das also referred to the efforts of MInistry of External Affairs at promoting Hindi. She said that realizing the importance of Hindi language, MEA has created an independent Hindi section which aims at training diplomats in the use of Hindi and ensures Hindi is given due place in the departmental communications.

Ambassador Das assured the organizers that the consulate will continue to extend all cooperation in promoting Hindi.

Earlier, Conference coordinator Ashok Ojha in his welcome address to the Consul General praised her for her support in organizing the conference. He said he was happy to acknowledge the great support Government of India and Ambassador Das have provided. He added that he was confident the Consulate would continue to provide the all out support for propagating and promoting Hindi.

Prof. Heinz W. Wessler, Institute for Linguistics and philology, Uppsala, Sweden delivered the keynote address. Prof. Wessler is born a German. He spoke on Hindi as a language of expression of diverse issues relating to culture, religion and politics.

Speaking in relatively chaste Hindi, given the fact that Hindi is an acquired language for him he said that media whether print or electronic has been helpful in promoting Hindi. He advocated use of common Hindi as spoken by the younger generation. He said there is nothing wrong if some foreign language words are spoken by a person expressing in Hindi. He referred to Munshi Prem Chand’s “Godaan” in which writing one comes across the language of common people. He gave details of a number Hindi publications in a number of countries. He also spoke of databases. The video presentation he gave was quite interesting.

Others who spoke on the occasion included Dr. Bejoy Mehta, chairman of board of trustees, Hindi Sangam Foundation; H. R. Shah , president of TV Asia & chairman of Bharatiya Vidya BHAVAN board of trustees.

Mrs. Purnima Desai, trustee of Hindi Sangam Foundation made a thanksgiving reference and said the organizers were moved to receive an overwhelming support for the International Hindi Conference and requested the audience to turn up for all sessions over the next two days, which also includes a Kavi Sammelan conducted by Prof. Bindeshwari (Bindu) Aggarwal.

A cultural performance was presented by students of Rimli Roy.

Evergreen TV Asia anchor Vikas Nangia was a delight as master of ceremonies.

The inaugural session was attended by more than 150 scholars, writers, Patrons and lovers of Hindi.