India-born writer honoured at 12th World Hindi Conference

MELBOURNE: India-born Hindi and Sanskrit writer-translator Dr Mridul Kirti was awarded the 'Vishwa Hindi Samman' Award by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar at recently-concluded 12th World Hindi Conference.

Melbourne-based Kirti has translated scriptures such as Samaveda and Ashtavakra Gita written in the classic Sanskrit language into Hindi and Brij Bhasha.

"Dr Mridul Kirti, who lives in Australia, is a cultural, spiritual and linguistic bridge of insight. She has translated many books into Hindi poetry. She has deep devotion towards Indian culture and spirituality," Jaishankar wrote in a tweet.

She considers herself to be a humble medium for spreading the message of God, and has devoted a large part of her life in writing and translating immortal religious texts, reads her website bio.

Kirti has a PhD in Political Science from Meerut University and has been awarded UP Sanskrit Sahitya Academy Award for translation.

The World Hindi Conference was co-hosted by the governments of India and Fiji from February 15-17 in Nadi, Fiji.

"Our aim is how to make Hindi a global language," Jaishankar, who inaugurated the ceremony, said.

The main theme of the conference was "Hindi - Traditional Knowledge of Artificial Intelligence".

The Hindi language, written in Devanagari script and influenced by Sanskrit, is the third most spoken language in the world with 615 million speakers after English and Mandarin.