CM honours 13 litterateurs

ETAWAH: Thirteen Hindi litterateurs were felicitated at the 11th Saraswat Samaroh, a glittering ceremony organised by the Etawah Hindi Sewa Samiti here on Saturday evening.
Chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, Chief Justice of India, Justice VN Khare, governor of Mizoram Amolak Ratan Kohli, home minister Swami Chinmayanand, Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court, Justice Tarun Chatterjee, were the prominent among those present.
Renowned exponent of Hindi, Dr Vishnu Prabhakar, was given the highest award of the Samiti, ''Janwani Samman'' for his outstanding contribution to the language.
The award, apart from a citation and memento, also carried a cash component of Rs 21,000. Prabhakar is known for his unique work, ''Awara Masiha,'' a biography of the maverick Bengali writer Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyaya.
For the first time, the Samiti also introduced an award for science which was given to former HoD of surgery, KGMU, Lucknow, Dr NC Mishra, for translating his pioneering work in cancer surgery in Hindi.
The others who were felicitated included Shambhu Nath, Surendra Prakash Tyagi, Dr Vishwnath Mishra, Ramdas Chaudhary, Bishop Isidore Fernandes, Jaikisan Khandelwal, Radha Charan Gupta, Shukdev Prasad Shastry, Gauri Shankar Chaudhary, Badan Singh ''Mastana'' and Mushir Ahmed Khan.
Addressing the gathering, the CM stressed on the necessity for having Hindi as a medium of communication both in the Parliament as well as the Supreme Court.
At the end, he also gave a grant of Rs 2 lakh to the Samiti and announced that a university exclusively for Hindi language will soon be opened in the town. In total contrast to the CM''s speech, Kohli emphasised on the "endeavour to learn and speak Hindi," rather than laying the onus on the government.