India: Lok Sabha [parliament] adjourned over railway ticket

[Harold F. Schiffman]

LS adjourned over railway ticket

Seemi Pasha CNN-IBN

TICKETING TROUBLE: Parliamentarians feel the third language policy on
tickets should be extended to all of India.  New Delhi: An innocent
railway ticket led to a huge ruckus in the Lok Sabha and eventually
adjournment on Thursday, as Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee left his
chair and stated that Parliament was adjourned till 1300 hrs IST. It all
started when BJD member B K Tripathi began reading out what he called, 'an
official circular of the Railway Board'. According to Tripathi, the
circular said the names of all stations on the railway ticket needed to be
written only in Hindi and English and that exception was allowed only in
the case of Tamil Nadu, where Tamil would be the third language.

He said that this was completely unfair and that the third language policy
should be extended to the whole country.  But was this commotion really
necessary? According to Congress leader, Kapil Sibal, the fact that a mere
railway ticket could raise so much commotion showed that India was a
democracy.

"This is what a democracy is all about," he said.

Even though the adjournment of the Lok Sabha was a waste of time, language
on the railway ticket actually turned out to be an issue passengers felt
strongly about. People from different states said that the information
should be printed on the ticket in their vernacular languages as well - be
it Oriya, Punjabi, Urdu or Marathi. And this was no surprise considering
that there are 21 other official languages apart from English and Hindi
that are recognised by India's Constitution - and all of them are vying to
get printed on this ticket.

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/ls-adjourned-over-railway-ticket/40808-4.html
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