Oxford Dictionaries announces ‘Aadhaar’ as its Hindi Word of the Year

New Delhi : Oxford Dictionaries has announced ‘Aadhaar’ as its Hindi Word of the Year for 2017 in the Jaipur Literary festival which is taking place in Rajasthan. The new Hindi World of the Year has attracted a great deal of attention and has further reflected the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of the past year. ‘Aadhaar’ is a word long established in the Hindi language but has gained a new sense in 2010. The shorthand name for the Aadhaar Card i.e. Unique Identification Numbers (UIN) was introduced by the then previous Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh.

The new added word has been in talks at the national conversation in 2017, as it move to mandate expansion of the programme to bank accounts and phone numbers. This has further resulted in significant debates around the merits and risks of the programme. Oxford Univeristy Press stated that, regardless of individual views on ‘Aadhaar’, 2017 has been the year where the word has become a focus of conversations across the country and that makes it Oxford Dictionaries Hindi Word of the Year.

IANS