Press Centre to amend Eighth Schedule: KAS to govt

SHILLONG, July 16: The Khasi Authors’ Society (KAS) said the state government should impress upon the Centre to come up with an official bill for the amendment of the Eighth Schedule for the inclusion of the Khasi language.
KAS president, DRL Nonglait told reporters that the Cabinet delegation should pursue with the Centre the need to introduce the bill in the upcoming session of Parliament.
“The effort of the state government should reflect in the records of the ministry concerned. If there are no such records, it would only show that the government was not serious about the matter,” he said.
He said the KAS members are disappointed that the resolution passed by the Assembly in January 2019 for the inclusion of the Khasi language in the Eighth Schedule has not yielded any result.
The KAS president said they expected Modi to make an official announcement during the celebration of 50 years of Meghalaya’s statehood, which he addressed online.
“This never happened. We submitted a memorandum to the union home minister in the presence of the chief minister at Pinewood in August 2021. There has been no official communication since,” Nonglait said.
He said a KAS delegation would be visiting New Delhi either in August-end or the first week of September to find out if their memorandum has reached the department concerned.
If the memorandum has not reached its destination, it would mean the state government has been misleading the people of Meghalaya all along, Nonglait said.