The Union Cabinet gave its approval to grant classical language status to five Indian languages: Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese, and Bengali, announced Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on 3 October 2024.
With this, the number of classical languages in India has increased to 11.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
India Government decided on 12 October 2004 to create a new category of languages as "Classical Language" under which Tamil was declared a classical language followed by Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Oriya.