❖ The Central government has decided to change the criteria for giving this special tag.

❖ India has six classical languages as of now – Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia.

❖ It was in 2014 that the government last granted the special tag (Odia).

❖ There have been demands from some States and literary circles for classical status to languages such as Marathi, Bengali, Assamese and Maithili.

❖ Of these, the case of Marathi has been pending for more than a decade.