On the latest cover, Frontline, a fortnightly magazine by “The Hindu” group, covered The Chenab Times, a news portal which promotes the lesser known languages of the erstwhile Doda district of Jammu & Kashmir. The latest magazine is based on language imperialism, covering the recent events of anti-Hindi protests and various other language issues in whole parts of the country.
The magazine says that The Chenab Times is preserving the local and endangered languages of the Chenab region and is currently working on local Bhaderwahi and Sarazi languages. It further said that the impetus for the initiative, the first of its kind, came after Parliament passed The Jammu and Kashmir Official Languages Act, 2020, which listed Kashmiri, Dogri, Urdu, Hindi, and English as official languages in the Union Territory.
In a survey of The Chenab Times team, the magazine observed that many people feared that this would obscure other famous languages like Sarazi, Bhaderwahi, etc., spoken in Jammu and Kashmir and lead to their decline. “We started this initiative to preserve our languages because people have almost forgotten them due to modern trends,” said Anzer Ayoob, founder of The Chenab Times to Frontline.
It is pertinent to mention that The Chenab Times is known for promoting the lesser known languages of the Chenab region in J&K and has been featured before on The Wire, Scroll, TwoCircles.net and more.
The magazine has published it’s web version a day ago and the print version will be available after 3rd June 2022.
The Chenab Times News Desk