Follow Us
Jammu, August 7
Union Minister Jitendra Singh released Vigyan Jattara, Dogri version of the widely read national monthly science magazine published by the Union Ministry of Science and Technology, at Brigadier Rajinder Singh Auditorium in the University of Jammu on Sunday.
He also announced that the Kashmiri language version of the same magazine would be launched soon.
The Union Minister of State (independent charge) for Science and Technology said promoting science communication and education in Indian languages was one of the key focuses of the present government and efforts were on to make available science textbooks in vernacular languages to the students.
Singh pointed out that there were many youths from different streams who had topped in national-level competitions after doing their graduation in their mother tongue. He cited the example of one of the five toppers in IAS/civil service exam a few years ago who had completed his entire education up to BA in Telugu medium.
“In a technology driven world of knowledge and progress, we owe it to the youth of this country to provide them with appropriate curriculum, literature and options to study science in the language of their choice and be able to compete with the students of English or Hindi medium,” he said.
“It is an established fact that language has no correlation with excellence in science. Countries like Russia, Japan and China have risen to be the leaders in scientific progress without the knowledge of English language. The contradiction in India is that for nearly two centuries we followed Lord Macaulay’s policy of education as a result of which all the important textbooks and literature in science is available and read mostly in English,” the minister added. In this regard, he solicited the help of science-knowing Dogri scholars to help translate the English language science textbooks into Dogri language without compromising the essence and meaning of expression.
Prof Umesh Rai, Vice Chancellor (VC) of University of Jammu; Prof Sanjeev Jain, VC of Central University, Jammu; and Prof Lalit Mangotra, former head of the physics department in the University of Jammu, also spoke on the occasion.
Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.
8