iNDICA NEWS BUREAU-
The President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans (AA), Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (NHPI) has requested the White House to translate all of President Joe Biden’s speeches into Hindi and several other Asian languages like Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Tagalog, and Mandarin.
The commission has pointed out that the President’s and Vice President’s speeches are only available in English, making them inaccessible to the over 25.1 million people with limited English proficiency. They are not currently being translated into their respective languages.
The President’s Advisory Commission made the recommendation after Indian American community leader Ajay Jain Bhutoria made a proposal during a meeting that was accepted by the commission. Bhutoria, a successful entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley, is now a member of the President’s Advisory Commission on AA and NHPI.
Based on Bhutoria’s plea, the commission during a meeting recommended that important speeches delivered by the President and Vice President of the United States should be translated into multiple AA and NHPI languages and made available on the White House website, preferably within a week.
The commission has recommended that the speeches be translated into Hindi, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Tagalog, and Mandarin languages. The commission has also urged the White House to share the translated speeches with the media and community outreach organizations via the White House Office of Public Engagement.
The United Nations General Assembly too has adopted an India-sponsored resolution on multilingualism that mentions the Hindi language for the first time. The resolution passed in June urges the United Nations to continue spreading vital communications and messages in both official and non-official languages, including Hindi.
India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations TS Tirumurti said, multilingualism is acknowledged as a basic principle of the United Nations and expressed gratitude to the Secretary-General for supporting multilingualism. He said, for the first time, the Hindi language is mentioned in the resolution besides Bangla and Urdu.
