Sanskrit to be an elective subject in schools

[J.B. Sharma]

 I am not clear from Dominik's note if the scope of this curricular 
change is for Karnataka only. When I was a high school student in 
the state of Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) in the 70's , all students had a 
rigorous component of Sanskrit as a part of study of Hindi 
literature. I am certain that this is still the case in U.P. In fact 
news was broadcast in Sanskrit on one of All India Radio channels in 
Lucknow at that time. Our Sanskrit teacher would give homework 
assignments pertaining to translating the news from Sanskrit to Hindi. 
Sanskrit is very much a living language in India as I know several 
folks who can read write and speak in Sanskrit quite fluently, even 
though they are not formal scholars of the language. However, it is 
not a living language in a sense of being a lingua franca of the 
masses.