Parliament can Amend the provision on official language of India under the Constitution by

Question

Question

This question was previously asked in

UPPSC Civil Service 2018 Official Paper 1

Answer 1

The correct answer is a simple majority of its members.

Parliament can Amend the provision on the official language of India under the Constitution by a simple majority of its members.

Key Points

Eighth Schedule and related Constitutional Provisions
Part XVII of the Indian constitution deals with the official languages in Articles 343 to 351.
The Constitutional provisions related to the Eighth Schedule are:
- Article 344: Article 344(1) provides for the constitution of a Commission by the President on the expiration of five years from the commencement of the Constitution.
- Article 351: It provides for the spread of the Hindi language to develop it so that it may serve as a medium of expression for all the elements of the composite culture of India.
Hence option 1 is correct.

Additional Information 22 Official Languages

The Eighth Schedule to the Constitution consists of the following 22 languages:
Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Bodo, Santhali, Maithili, and Dogri.
Of these languages, 14 were initially included in the Constitution.
- The Sindhi language was added by the 21st Amendment Act of 1967.
- Konkani, Manipuri, and Nepali were included by the 71st Amendment Act of 1992.
- Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, and Santhali were added by the 92nd Amendment Act of 2003.