'BJP-led Centre imposes Hindi in every possible situation': EPS on LIC portal turning 'all-Hindi'

CHENNAI: AIADMK general secretary and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Tuesday attacked the BJP-led Centre for imposing Hindi “wherever they could” in the country. His remarks came after the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) website had read “all Hindi” with Hindi, not English, being set as the default language, earlier today.

Taking sharp exception to this, Palaniswami pointed out that the LIC website cannot then be used by those who don’t know Hindi and urged the Central government to take all necessary actions to change the default language of the website to English so that all people could use it.

“In India, which is diverse in everything from language, culture, organisation, and politics, imposing uniformity is an act that affects the balance of the country. It is not acceptable,” he said on social media platform X.

Many leaders from southern states including Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin strongly condemned LIC and demanded immediate change of the language interface.

Following the heavy criticism, the insurance major issued an explanation on social media on Tuesday evening, saying that a technical glitch on their site had prevented users from accessing their webpages in dual languages. It then confirmed that users could now view the portal's info in both English and Hindi, like before