Nepal's state-owned news agency starts news services in Newari and Maithili languages

Kathmandu, Oct 20 (PTI) Nepal's state-owned news agency - Rastriya Samachar Samiti - on Sunday started news services in two regional languages - Newari and Maithili.
    The Newari language is spoken by the Newar communities in the Kathmandu Valley, while Maithili is popular in the Mithila region in the country's south, bordering India.
    Inaugurating the news services in Newari and Maithili, Minister for Communication and IT Prithvi Subba Gurung said the beginning of news services in these two regional languages will help promote the respective languages and strengthen national unity.
    Nepal is a country of unity in diversity, where more than 100 languages are spoken, he said, adding that dissemination of news in different languages will end discrimination based on language, culture, religion and class, which are the basic features of a federal democratic system.
    Dharmendra Jha, executive chairman of the news agency, said the first newspaper in the Newari language started one hundred years ago, while the first Maithili language newspaper was published around 120 years ago.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)