Action to seek Cabinet nod for Odia as classical language

NEW DELHI, Aug 13:
The Government is in the process of declaring Malayalam as a classical language and was taking  action to seek Cabinet approval for Odia, the Lok Sabha was  informed today.
Culture Minister Chandresh Kumari Katoch said in a written  reply that the Government had accorded classical language status  to Tamil and Sanskrit in 2004 and 2005 respectively. Later it  had recognised three southern languages — Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam as classical languages.
“The order for Malayalam is under issue,” the Minister  added.
She said the Linguistic Experts Committee had till now  resolved to declare Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Odia as  classical languages on the basis of criteria laid down for the purpose.
Ms Katoch said action was being taken to seek approval of  the Cabinet for declaring Odia as a classical language.  (UNI)