LIC’s new website defaults to Hindi language, creating a row

The row erupted when LIC’s website defaulted to Hindi, sparking political backlash.

The new LIC website defaulted to Hindi, which sparked a row and political backlash. Leaders accused the government of imposing the language and demanded a rollback. The new website changed the default language from English to Hindi.

LIC’s website defaults to Hindi language.

The new website of the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has sparked a political controversy when it changed its default language from English to Hindi. Several political leaders, including Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin and the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP)’s own state unit, have criticized the move. They accuse the central government of imposing Hindi as a language on the public.

“LIC has been reduced to a propaganda tool.”

Taking to X, MK Stalin wrote, “The LIC website has been reduced to a propaganda tool for Hindi imposition. Even the option to select English is displayed in Hindi! This is nothing but cultural and language imposition by force, trampling on India’s diversity. LIC grew with the patronage of all Indians. How dare it betray the majority of its contributors? We demand an immediate roll back of this linguistic tyranny.” Customized browsers of users who typically access English websites offer a prompt on translating the website into English, but the option to choose the language from the main menu is in Hindi.

LIC’s new website’s default language has been changed to Hindi.

LIC’s new website’s default language has now been changed to Hindi instead of English. The option to change the language to English is under the menu option “bhasha” (language) written in the Devanagari script. As per LIC’s website, over 250 million people are covered.

LIC says it is a technical problem.

LIC said that the issue was caused by a “technical problem.” They posted on X, “Our corporate website was not shuffling the language page due to some technical problem. The issue is resolved now, and the website is available in English/Hindi language. Inconvenience caused is deeply regretted.”