Mumbai, September 14: Union home minister Amit Shah said on Monday that the “Hindi Shabd-Sindhu” dictionary, which began with 51,000 words, has grown to 800,000 words and is on course to become the world’s largest dictionary by 2029, as he addressed Hindi Diwas 2026 and the 6th All India Official Language Conference in Mumbai.
Shah, who also holds the cooperation portfolio, was the chief guest at the event, held alongside Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations. Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, deputy chief ministers Eknath Shinde and Sunetra Pawar, and union ministers of state for home affairs Nityanand Rai and Bandi Sanjay Kumar were among those present.
Shah said more than 50,000 words from regional languages, including Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali and Odia, have been added to the dictionary to make Hindi more flexible. He said the process also includes words coined by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
Language policy under the National Education Policy
Shah said the government has made learning one’s mother tongue compulsory in primary education under the National Education Policy, and has also encouraged students to learn a second Indian language. He said more than 5 lakh central government employees have been trained in the official language, and that entrance examinations including JEE and NEET are now conducted in 13 languages.
He said the AI-based “Kanthasth 2.0” platform, which has a database of more than five crore sentences, has been opened to users outside India. Since 2019, four volumes of the Official Language Committee’s reports have been submitted to the president, he said, with a fifth volume ready.
During the event, Shah presented the Rajbhasha Kirti and Rajbhasha Gaurav awards and released special commemorative editions of the department’s journal “Rajbhasha Bharati,” along with a compilation on the national song “Vande Mataram.”