The National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee on Law and Justice on Tuesday decided to refer a private member bill seeking national language status to seven regional languages to the constitution committee for advice. The bill was presented by around a dozen MNAs led by PPP’s Nawab Yousaf Talpur. The Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2011 seeks to amend Article 251 of the constitution that specifies only Urdu as the national language with the statement, “The national languages of Pakistan are Balochi, Punjabi, Pashto, Shina/Balti, Sindhi, Saraiki and Urdu.”
