UN celebrates Hindi Diwas at New York headquarters

New York, November 23:
The United Nations celebrated Hindi Divas in its headquarters on Friday (local time) and the event was attended by MPs from India among others. MP Birendra Prasad Baishya highlighted the popular appeal of Hindi in different countries.

"Hindi Diwas 2024 was celebrated in the UN, in the gracious presence of Hon'ble MPs from India, PRs from several countries, diplomatic community and several guests. MP Birendra Prasad Baishya highlighted the popular appeal of Hindi in different countries," the permanent mission of India to the UN said in a statement.

For the first time, the Hindi Diwas is being organised in the UN premises. This provides an impetus to India's collaborative effort of promoting multilingualism with the UN. Given India's multilingual and pluralistic character of society, which coincides with the United Nations, holding the event in the UN also serves the purpose to connect with the wider audience, to achieve a higher scale of participation, including those from the Hindi- speaking Diaspora Missions such as Trinidad and Tobago, Fiji, Mauritius, Guyana, Suriname etc, as per the UN.
Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations, Parvathaneni Harish underscored the importance of the celebrations this year as 2024 is the 75th year of adoption of Hindi as an official language.

Permanent Representatives of Mauritius and Nepal and representatives of Guyana and Suriname and UN stressed the instrumental role of Hindi in strengthening the ties between peoples. The event encouraged participation by Hindi-enthusiasts, Diaspora members and Officials and family members of the UN /PMI/ CGI, in four categories of competition. An essay competition on the theme of Women Empowerment was held, Poetry writing competition on the importance of Hindi, Recital / singing of Hindi poems/songs and a Quiz on India's Civilization.
As per UN's statement, India is home to a wide range of dialects and languages each with their own regional flavour. Post-independence, Hindi with its large base of native speakers, together with English, has become the official language of India. To commemorate this recognition, the India declared 14 September as Hindi Day. This is a celebration of Hindi's cultural and linguistic significance, and its role in national unity and identity

Source: ANI