The Hindi text on the name boards of Central government offices, including the BSNL, BHEL, Post Office and the airport, were blackened in Tamil Nadu's Tiruchirappalli after the anti-Hindi imposition row in the state.
This incident of vandalism - where the Hindi names have been smeared with black paint but the English and Tamil text is left untouched - was noticed on Saturday, June 8. The police reportedly said that a case has been registered and severe action will be taken against the miscreants.
Severe public backlash over the three-language clause in the draft of the National Education Policy (NEP) had erupted in the non-Hindi speaking states after it was released. The clause was strongly opposed by principal opposition party DMK and others, who termed it as an attempt to "impose" Hindi in the state.
The clause has now been removed and the draft stands revised. "Students who wish to change one or more of the three languages they are studying may do so in Grade 6 or Grade 7, so long as they are able to still demonstrate proficiency in three languages (one language at the literature level) in their modular Board Examinations sometime during secondary school," the revised draft says.
Senior Officials in the MHRD had reportedly said that the paragraph mentioning the inclusion of Hindi language as a compulsory one in the draft had crept into it and now stands removed. However, the officials declined to state why it was removed.
A clarification was also made by former ISRO chief K Kasturirangan, who heads a panel on NEP, that there were no efforts to impose Hindi anywhere. "We had two approved versions where one of them did not convey the spirit of the language policy as we wanted to give. We replaced it with the para that does not mention Hindi," he reportedly said.
