MUMBAI, Aug. 5 -- The state government has directed schools across Maharashtra to organise a seven-day 'Indian Language Summer Camp' in August, and to preserve attendance records, photographic evidence and reports as proof of compliance. The directive, issued through a June 22 circular from the state school education department, applies to government and government-aided schools. It has been criticised by teachers, saying they are already burdened with non-academic work and may not be able to conduct another activity. The initiative falls under the Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat programme, which encourages "multilingual learning". The circular says schools can choose any one of 121 Indian languages. The 28-hour programme, which can be held in phases in August, will introduce students to basic greetings, conversations and vocabulary, as well as role-playing activities, films and cultural programmes in the selected language. The guidelines also state that each school is expected to have 70 to 100 students in the camp. They may take the help of language, art and music teachers, volunteers and parents. NCERT will provide study material, while SCERT and DIET will coordinate the programme at the state and district levels. Deepak Pawar, chairperson of the Marathi Abhyas Kendra, has written to the director of SCERT, questioning the need to make students from Classes VI to VIII spend 28 hours learning another Indian language when they are already studying Marathi, Hindi and English. "The choice of learning another language should be left to students and parents, and not be imposed by the government," he said. Teacher Ramakant Basane from a zilla parishad school in Thane district said, "We are already working on SIR and census. This is one more thing being imposed."...