Indira, Rajiv names dropped from two Hindi awards

The BJP-led NDA government has dropped the names of former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi from two awards for propagating Hindi.

The two awards have been discontinued by the Union Home Ministry, which instead launched two new schemes for doing outstanding work for promoting the progressive use of official language.

According to a Home Ministry order, the ‘Indira Gandhi Rajbhasha Puraskar’ and ‘Rajiv Gandhi Rashtriya Gyan-Vigyan Maulik Pustak Lekhan Puraskar’, launched more than two decades ago, have given way for ‘Rajbhasha Kirti Puraskar’ and ‘Rajbhasha Gaurav Puraskar’.

‘Administrative decision’ Home Ministry officials denied that the earlier two awards, named after the two former Prime Ministers belonging to the Congress, have been changed due to political considerations by the BJP-led NDA government.

“It is purely an administrative decision to make the awards more useful,” an official said. Earlier, there were four categories of Rajbhasha awards of which two were named after the two former Prime Ministers.

The four awards were merged into two now.