Malayalam bill rejected by the President to reach Assembly in new form

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The government will reintroduce the Malayalam Language Bill, which was denied assent by the President, in the Assembly with new provisions. The bill is being brought for the promotion and boosting of the Malayalam language. The President denied assent to the bill last May after it had been stalled for 10 years.

The bill includes provisions such as making Malayalam the first language in government and aided schools up to class 10, converting the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (Official Language) into the Department of Malayalam Language Development, and forming the Directorate of Malayalam Language Development.

State laws, ordinances, government orders, by-laws and rules will be in Malayalam. The first half of the boards of commercial, industrial and trading institutions functioning with the permission of the government or local bodies should be in Malayalam. The proceedings, including judgments, in district courts will be made in Malayalam in a phased manner. The judgments required for appeal in the High Court will be translated into English. Free software will be created for Malayalam in IT. Information on government websites should also be made available in Malayalam. The basic language of the e-governance project should be Malayalam. These are other provisions of the bill.

The bill, passed by the assembly in 2015, was sent to the President by then Governor P. Sathasivam on suspicion that it would infringe on the constitutional rights of linguistic minorities, including Tamil and Kannada. The bill includes a provision that non-Malayalam students coming from other states and foreign countries will be exempted from writing the Malayalam examination in classes 9 and 10 and higher secondary. There is also a provision that students whose mother tongue is any other language can study in the languages ​​​​of their choice, which are available in schools in the state.