Classical language status to Marathi, Bengali & Pali

The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved conferring the status of classical language to Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali languages. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by PM Narendra Modi.

"This is a historical decision… goes very well with the NDA government's philosophy of taking pride in our culture, our heritage and all Indian languages and the rich heritage that we have," Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said at a cabinet briefing.

The classical languages serve as a custodian of Bharat's profound and ancient cultural heritage, embodying the essence of each community's historical and cultural milestone, the government said.

The Centre decided to create a new category of languages as "classical languages" on October 12, 2004, declaring Tamil as classical language and thereafter Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia languages were given classical language status.