Shillong: In a bid to promote and preserve the state’s indigenous languages, the Meghalaya Cabinet on Wednesday decided to come out with the state literary awards to authors.
The annual state literary awards for authors of local languages will be for Khasi and Garo – one award in Khasi and one award in Garo. There will be a one lakh cash award for each. Apart from that every year there will be a committee which will be headed by the director who will screen different nominations that may come in. People can self-nominate, as well as others can also nominate them after the screening, the Committee will then propose the list to the government.
In November 2018, Meghalaya Legislative Assembly unanimously passed a resolution to urge the Centre to include Khasi and Garo languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. To date, the Government of India hasn’t given its approval.
“Apart from the resolution that we passed, this is another step towards ensuring that we give the necessary push and importance to our own language and promote our languages,” said Meghalaya CM Conrad K Sangma.
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