Oxford announces the word ‘Atma Nirbharta’ Word of the Year 2020
New Delhi, February 2, 2021: Oxford has added another new word to its Hindi words. This is ‘Atma Nirbharta’. The term was publicly mentioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 12 May 2020 when the country was in the grip of the Corona epidemic and was announcing an economic package to overcome it. After this, the word became quite popular and became a topic of discussion.
PM Modi had said that to make the country self-reliant in every field was the vision of giving India a strong foundation for the future, which now seems to be coming true. When PM Modi first mentioned it, he announced an economic package of 20 lakh crores, which was about ten percent of the country’s GDP. He made 16 announcements for the upliftment of micro, small and medium industries under Atma Nirbharta Bharat. These included announcements of doubling farmers’ income.
About a year ago, in January 2020, 26 Indian Hindi words were also included in the new rite of Oxford Dictionary. These included words such as “shaadi”, “hartal”, “Aadhaar”,”chaval” and “dabba”. Apart from this, “chatbots” and “fake news” were also included in its dictionary by Oxford. Of these, 22 words were included in its print edition while the other four were included in its digital edition. These were the words that common Indian people use in their lore. By combining these words, 384 words were included in the tenth edition of this dictionary which is used for general conversation in India.
It is only natural for Indian words to be given importance after the Indian word Atma Nirbharta is included in it. The term has been selected by the language experts Kritika Aggarwal, Poonam Nigam Sahay, and Imogen Foxtel in its advisory panel. Oxford is a special watch on the circulation of spoken and new words in certain languages spoken around the world. Only then does Oxford incorporate these words into its new edition. The Oxford Dictionary is known all over the world and people from all over the world use it to learn the meaning of new words. It is about 78 years old. In the year 1942, it was first published in Japan. In 1948, Oxford University published it for the first time.
