With a view to encouraging people of every region in India to learn languages of other regions and for promoting social cohesion and national integration, the Central Institute of Indian Languages, on behalf of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, has instituted a prize scheme, entitled Bhasha-Bharati Samman; under which 22 prizes of the value of Rs. 25,000/- (Rupees twenty-five thousand only) each for the published works to be awarded to authors and translators of books in any Indian language in the 8th Schedule other than their mother tongue, Hindi, and Sanskrit (Books in English are not qualified any way under this scheme).The awards are being presented since 2001 and the facilitation in Vogue.

A. Rules:

1. Book belonging to any of the following categories is eligible for award of prize:

i) Literature (Fiction, Drama, Memoirs, Travelogues, Essays and Poetry) ii) Fine Arts and Humanities iii) Social Sciences and iv) Science and Technology v) Any other to be specified.

2. Books must have been published during the last 6 calendar years (Jan 1999-Dec 2004 for the current set of awards) in any Indian Languages mentioned in the VIII Schedule of the Constitution of India (other than Hindi, Sanskrit and the author’s mother tongue). Two languages of the North East are also included in the scheme.

3. Bhasha-Bharati Samman is awarded for writing in the following languages: 1. Assmese, 2. Bengali, 3. Bodo 4. Dogri 5. Gujarati, 6. Kannada, 7. Kashmiri, 8. Konkani, 9. Maithili, 10. Malayalam 11. Manipuri, 12. Marathi, 13. Nepali, 14. Oriya, 15. Punjabi, 16. Santali 17. Sindhi, 18. Tamil, 19. Telugu, and 20. Urdu and two languages in North-Earth, preferably Ao and Angami but not restricted to them alone. Out of these 2 may be specifically reserved for writers whose mother tongue is Hindi and who hae written something original or translated into any other Indian language.

4. All books in translation are ideally considered only for the target language of the text which may or may not be the candidate’s mother-tongue. If there is a tie between two such candidates-one with the target language as his/her mother-tongue, and another with a different mother-tongue, the latter will be preferred.

5. When there is a tie between original book and a work of translation, the original book is preferred.

6. Between two books of translation the one directly from the source to the target language would be preferred.

7. Books intended as teaching materials for children and neo-literates as well as the textbooks prepared specifically for classroom instruction are not to be considered for this award.

8. Books which have already received a prize or an award of the Ministry of HRD, or one or more of the following major National Awards: (i) Sahitya Akademi (ii) Jnanpith (iii) Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad (i) Kabir Samman (v) Kalidas Samman (vi) Saraswati Samman etc shall not be eligible for this award.

9. An author who gets ‘Bhasha-Bharati’ prize once shall not be considered again within the next five years form the year in which he/she won the prize.

10. At the time of consideration of the award by the second level jury the author concerned should have been alive. All awardees must have Indian citizenship (for which candidates with dual citizenship will be included).

11. While recommending along with the recommendation form one copy of the book along with the bill may please be sent.

12. Officers and staff of the Central Institute of Indian Language and its Regional Language Centers and their dependents shall not be eligible for this award.

13. Government reports and routine publications brought out by the Government of India or a state Government and Ph. D dissertations shall not be eligible for the award of prizes.

SELECTION PROCESS

First-tier: At this tier applications received from the applicants through advertisements in the newspapers and recommendations made by a group of 8 or more ground level experts in each language will be considered. The Samman secretariat will carefully scrutinize all such books recommended and place only eligible cases before the Second-tier Committee.

Second-tier: This tier consists of Five Zonal Committees for Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western and Northeastern languages. Each Zonal committee will have 3 experts from each language under its jurisdiction. These Committees will consider the recommendations of the first-tier, and, if necessary, could also consider other books in the concerned languages. The Samman Secretariat will ensure making copies of the short-listed books available before the Zonal Committee Members actually meet. The short-listed books will be sent to these experts before hand. In case a member would like to add a new entry to this list, it will be his/her responsibility to procure at least one copy of the book being recommended, and send it to the Samman Secretariat, or bring it to the meeting.

The Zonal committee members for each language will read through the books that have come up from the first tier, and short-list 3 books / authors for the Bhasha-Bharati Samman and make appropriate recommendations of a Proforma, highlighting the merits of the work. For this purpose, there will be meetings in each zone lasting for a day or two. If a book is added to the list by the Zonal Committee Members, the Samman Secretariat will screen the same in respect of the rules of the award before forwarding the recommendations to the Apex Jury.

Third-tier: The Apex jury will decide on the basis of the recommendations of the experts of the second-tier.