Oxford Dictionaries, on Saturday, announced Aadhaar as the Hindi Word of the Year, explaining that it has attracted a great deal of attention and reflects the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of the past year.
"Aadhaar is a word long established in the Hindi language. However, it gained a new sense in 2010 as the shorthand name for the Aadhaar card, or the Unique Identification Numbers (UIN) introduced by the then government of prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh. This new sense of the word has been at the centre of the national conversation in 2017 as moves to mandate expansion of the programme to bank accounts and phone numbers have resulted in significant debates around the merits and risks of the programme. 2017 has been the year of several high-profile court cases and reports of data leaks which have influenced public opinion. Regardless of individual views on ‘Aadhaar’, 2017 has certainly been the year where the word has become a focus of conversations across the country. This is why it has been chosen as Oxford Dictionaries Hindi Word of the Year," the official statement read.
The Word of the Year was formally announced on Saturday, January 27, at the Jaipur Literature Festival where it was subject of a panel discussion with Ashok Vajpeyi, Hindi poet, literary and cultural critic, Saurabh Dwivedi, Editor at TheLallentop, Pankaj Dubey, writer, producer and director, Vinod Dua, Hindi journalist, and Padma Shri award-holder, Anu Singh Choudhary, writer, translator and filmmaker, and Chitra Mudgal, one of the leading literary figures of modern Hindi literature.
