At the Jaipur Literature Festival on Saturday, the Oxford Dictionary declared ‘Aadhaar’ as its 2017 ‘Hindi Word of the Year.’
The shortlist included ‘Mitron’, ‘Bahubali’, ‘Notebandi’, ‘Gaurakshak’, and ‘Aadhaar.’
Because of the involvement of ‘Aadhaar’ in most of the controversies regarding the 12 digit unique identification number introduced by the Government of India that had attracted a great deal of social and political debates across the country, it was chosen.
The word ‘Aadhaar’ origins can be traced back to Sanskrit and in modern Hindi it means ‘foundation’ or ‘base.’
The selection process was of the Word of the Year was done by language expert like Kritika Agarwal, journalist Saurabh Dwivedi, Editor-in-Chief of thelallantop.com: Mallika Ghosh, Senior Editorial Manager of Oxford University Press India, writer and publisher Namita Gokhle and others.
