Straight answers

Nitish Biswas, Editor, Calcutta University Matribhasha Committee, On the ongoing five-day long Matribhasha Festival What is the purpose behind the Matribhasha Festival? Unlike other states, there is a lot of indifference towards Bengali in West Bengal. Even the academicians here are inclined towards English. Across the country, Bangla is no longer taught in universities and colleges where it used to be, in the past.With this festival, we are trying to create more awareness not just about Bangla but also about various other vernacular languages which need to be preserved and popularised amongst people. What will be the highlights of this festival? We have organized a book fair in the Central Library of the campus where all books published by the University will be available at good discounts. There will be a series of lectures by academicians on issues like using Bangla in college administration, CU's efforts in trying to preserve Bangla and the problem of national languages in India. We are also organising a kabi sammelan where poets of different languages will read their original works along with their translations in Bangla. How else is Calcutta University trying to promote Bangla? Calcutta University, being the headquarters of the Bangla language, is encouraging university professors to write journals on this issue, as well as use Bangla as much as possible during lectures. We are also trying to use Bangla for our internal official purposes. Besides, this is the festival's 10th year and we want to make it more elaborate and effective in the years to come.