Johannesburg may host next Hindi conference

An organisation in South Africa, which works for the promotion of Hindi language, is pushing for hosting the World Hindi Conference next year here.

A high-level delegation from the Indian Ministry of External Affairs met leaders of the South African Hindi-speaking community here and discussed the matter with them.

“We were very encouraged by the level of enthusiasm shown by the South African community,” said Anup Mudgal, Joint Secretary of the Ministry after the meeting which was initiated by the Hindi Shiksha Sangh of South Africa.

Mudgal said that final decisions about the Conference would be taken at a later stage.

He did not comment whether there were other countries in the diaspora also making a bid to host the event, which has been held since its inception in 1975 in India, Mauritius, Surinam, the UK, Trinidad and the United Nations.

“We felt that we needed to make a bid for hosting this important conference that is hosted regularly all over the world in South Africa for the first time, especially with its important objectives of promoting the Hindi language and literature abroad,” said Heeralall Sewnath of the Sangh.

Representatives of various cultural and religious organisations from across South Africa made inputs at the meeting at the offices of the Indian Cultural Centre in Parktown, facilitated by the Director of the Centre, Vinod Sandlesh.

Strongly supported by the Indian Government, the conference at the UN in 2007 ended with an appeal to India to make a concerted effort to mobilise other nations towards giving recognition to Hindi as the seventh official language of the United Nations.