President Ram Nath Kovind has given his assent to the Jammu and Kashmir Official Languages Act, 2020, and the Centre has notified it in the official Gazette, the government said in a statement on Sunday. The new law allows for the inclusion of Kashmiri, Dogri and Hindi, in addition to Urdu and English, in the list of official languages in the Union Territory.
The statement said that English may continue to be used “for those administrative and legislative purposes in the Union territory for which it was being used before the commencement of this Act”. The business in the Legislative Assembly of the Jammu and Kashmir shall be carried out in the official languages of the Union territory, it added.
The lieutenant governor can take steps to strengthen the existing institutional mechanisms such as the Academy of Art, Culture and Languages for the promotion and development of…