While thousands of students across the country were glued to their TVs to watch Prime Minister Narendra Modi's sixth edition of Pariksha Pe Charcha (PPC) live, Akshara Siri Ramisetty (14), a Class IX student at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Ranga Reddy, Telangana got the "hard-earned" chance to ask the Prime Minister a question on Friday, January 27.
In order to ask a question to the head of the Indian government, Akshara completed two rounds of testing in competition with hundreds of other students. Akshara, the third girl in her family, had to win an essay contest and an interview with Hyderabad regional deputy commissioner of Navodaya Vidya, Samiti T Gopala Krishna, before she could take advantage of the opportunity.
By using the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Akshara contacted the Prime Minister via virtual mode to ask for advice on what Indians should do to learn more languages given that the nation is multilingual. In response to the question, Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised India's cultural diversity and rich heritage, saying that the country's home to thousands of dialects and hundreds of languages is a source of great pride. Aside from the mother tongue, he emphasised the importance of learning at least one regional Indian language, stated a report in The New Indian Express.
The Prime Minister stressed the importance of language learning without making it difficult for academics, saying, "By attempting to learn a regional language, you are not just learning about the language becoming an expression but also opening the doors to the history and heritage associated with the region." He drew an analogy where the citizens take pride in a monument of the country that was built two thousand years ago, the Prime Minister said that the country should take similar pride in the Tamil language which is known to be the oldest language on earth.
Speaking to TNIE, Akshara said that she is overwhelmed by the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to interact with the Prime Minister. She said that she always had the idea of learning multiple languages and wondered how to learn them. "I put forward my idea before the Prime Minister, and got an inspiring response," she said. She thanked her mother Padmaja, who works as an English language teacher in the same school, and her principal for their support, as reported by The New Indian Express.
