The Vishwa Hindi Sammelan is a major event, 7th since its inception in 1975. The first sammelan was held in 1975 and incidentally Nagpur, a non-Hindi city, was the venue. The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi inaugurated the sammelan. Likewise, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the current sammelan on September 10.

Amitabh Bachchan will be the chief guest at the valedictory function on September 12. The main theme of the three-day conclave is 'How to expand the 'Hindi's area of Influence'. The External affairs Ministry is the organiser of the sammelan. According to Anil Madhav Dave MP and Vice-chairman of the organising committee 2500 Hindi lovers from Madhya Pradesh have been invited to participate in the conference. Despite this claim by Dave there are lots of complaints from state's literary persons that they have been totally ignored by the organisers of the conference. Office bearers of several organisations which work for the promotion of Hindu are also making similar complaints.

According to Dave delegates from 39 countries will be attending the conference. The total number of foreign delegates will exceed thirteen hundred. The countries from which delegates are coming include Afghanistan, United states of America, Armenia, Australia, Republic of Korea, Chile, China, Germany, Japan, Thailand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Netherlands, Fizi, Portugal, Russia, Belgium, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Hong Kong, etc.

Besides foreign delegates there are several important personalities of the country who have been named as member of India's official delegation. They include several Union Ministers, governors and chief ministers of various states, members of parliament belonging to various parties. State governors who have consented to attend are Kesrimal Tripathi of West Bengal, Mridula Sinha of Goa, Surprisingly the name of MP governor. Ram Niwas Yadav does not figure in the list of governors. Congress spokesperson, K.K. Mishra has termed omission of M.P. governor's name as insult to the state. The list of members of parliament includes Professor Saugat Roy. S.S. Ahluwalia, Anant Kumar Hegde, Shatrughan Sinha, Ashwini Kumar, KiranKher, Shanta Kumar, Tarun Vijay, ChandanMitra, Rajiv Shukla, Ram Gopal Yadav, K.C. Tyagi, Satish Mishra, Sitaram Yechury, Sanjay Raut, Naresh Gujral, K.C. Patel, Vivek Gupta, Satyavrat Chaturvedi, Dr. Prashana Kumar. Some former members of parliament have also been invited. They are Vijay Kumar Malhotra, Professor I.G. Sandi, Jabir Hussain.

The subjects to be considered during three day sammelan are teaching of Hindi in foreign countries, problems and remedies, Hindi in non-Hindi states, Hindi in foreign policy, Hindi in administration, Hindi in science, Hindi in Information Technology, Hindi in law and Judiciary. Children's, literature and Hindi, Hindi in media, Hindi publications in India and abroad.

The last day of the conference will be devoted to the reports, prepared by various sub-groups.

The concluding session will be addressed by the chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Amitabh Bachchan, Home minister Rajnath Singh.

Various halls have been named by various eminent persons of Hindi literature. They include Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Dushyant Kumar, Kaka Kalelkar. The venue of the conference has been name Makhanlal Chaturvedi, great poets and freedom fighter. Many discordant notes have been heard about the manner of preparations, total neglect of local literary persons, total failure to involve the residents of Bhopal in the preparations for the conference, the conference has been made a bureaucratic affairs. Critical reports have appeared in the print media about irregularities in the purchase of various facilities, many items required for the conference have been purchased at higher rates than available in the marked.

Even the Mayor of Bhopal Corporation has complained of keeping him in dark from the preparation for the sammelan. (IPA Service)