February 21: International Mother Language Day observed

International Mother Language Day(IMLD) 2015 was celebrated across the world on 21 February 2015. The theme for IMLD 2015 is “Inclusion in and through education: Language counts”. Its focus is on one of the main challenges that cuts across many of the goals, i.e. Inclusion (equity/quality).

• The year 2015 is the 15th anniversary of International Mother Language Day.The day is observed every year since February 2000 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.
• International Mother Language Day was proclaimed by the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in November 1999.
• The date represents the day in 1952 when students from different educational institutions such as Dhaka University, Jagannath University, Dhaka Medical College demonstrating for recognition of their language, Bengali, as one of the two national languages of the then Pakistan, were shot and killed by police in Dhaka (near High Court), which is the capital of present-day Bangladesh.