Third International Hindi Conference to be held in New Jersey

Bhopal: The US-based Hindi Sangam Foundation will be organising the Third International Hindi Conference at Rutgers University, New Jersey from March 4-6, 2016 to promote Hindi in America.

"Buoyed by the success of International Hindi Conference held at Rutgers University from April 3-5, 2015, Hindi Sangam Foundation--the organisers--have decided to hold the Third International Hindi Conference on March 4-6, 2016," Ashok Ojha, coordinator and Managing Trustee of the Foundation told PTI today.

Ojha arrived here to take part in the three-day-long 10th World Hindi Conference.

Rutgers has agreed to host the 2016 conference as it foresaw great potential in establishing a strong bond with the Indian-American community as well as the government of

India which supported the conference in the past through its mission in New York, he said.

The first such conference, held at New York University in April 2014, was inaugurated by the then Ambassador S Jaishankar, Foundation's India Coordinator, Prakash Hindustani said.

Ojha, who was recently appointed as Honorary Visiting Scholar by Department of African, Middle Eastern and South Asian Language and Literature, Rutgers University, pointed out that the 2016 conference is aimed at promoting Hindi as a world language that represented the cultural identity of the people of Indian Diaspora.

"We would like to invite research scholars, professors, teachers and Hindi supporters from all over the world to attend the 2016 conference and share ideas and thoughts on the overarching theme of the conference, `Hindi as a Democratic Language", Hindustani said.

The 2016 conference will provide a forum for community members and leaders, language experts, policy makers, education administrators, advocates and other stakeholders from different parts of US, Canada, South America and Caribbean countries along with experts from India to get together and share and exchange their views and research, Ojha said.

"As the representative of the 'Hindi Center at Rutgers' I would like to work with the officials of Government of India and USA to support Hindi learning initiatives in educational institutions, especially school districts, where Hindi is not included as a part of the curricula," he said.