Arts and culture bring different people together, to appreciate each other with their diversity and language is one of the most important part of any culture as it is the way by which people communicate with one another, build relationships and create a sense of community. There are roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world today and Jammu and Kashmir is no different than rest of the world. List of languages of J&K include Kashmiri, Shina/Khowar (Dardic group), dialects of Shina being -Gilgiti, Kohistani Shina, Guresi, Drassi and Broksat, Burushaski is used in Hunza/Nagar areas of Gilgit-Baltistan, with a few in Botraj Mohalla of the Hari Parbat in Srinagar, distinct Pahari languages used are Bhaderwahi, Padri, Poonchi, Mirpuri, Parmi or Pahari (Karnah), Ladakhi or Bhoti or Bodhi in Leh district, Balti in Baltistan and Kargil/Leh district, Purgi language used in Kargil and Leh, Zangskari in Zanskar area of Kargil, Dogri being main language in Jammu Division. Pashto/Wakhi (Gilgit-Baltistan) belonging to Iranian language family are also spoken and Gojri is primarily spoken by Gujjars and Bakerwals. Never to forget Urdu in addition to English, Hindi, Dogri and Kashmiri are official languages of J&K now. With these diverse languages/culture/arts in J&K focus should have been on Arts, Culture and Languages Department but the actual picture depicts totally sorry state of affairs. What can be more callous attitude of the concerned that in the last 13 years there is acute staff shortage of staff at Academy of Art, Culture and Languages as no new recruitment has been done since 2009. Each and every section of the department has been deprived of the sanctioned staff so much so that almost every officer is with additional charge to handle thereby unable to do justice to the work allocated. 26 vacant posts for Gazetted Officers, 72 non-Gazetted and 18 Class-IV employees, in total shortage of 116 as per two decade old staff requisition and the result is overburdened staff doing overtime to keep the department working. Though timely promotion is the fundamental right of employee and an opportunity for administration to reward the deserving employees but at JKAACL it’s a distant dream as no Departmental Promotional Committee (DPC) constituted during this period with the result numerous deserving employees even retired without due promotions. A peek into the vacant Gazetted positions at the Academy which include one post each of Additional Secretary and Deputy Secretary, three Chief Editors (Dogri-Hindi Dictionary, Encyclopedia Kashmiriyana and Urdu), one post of Special Officer for Cultural Activities G-1, two of Editor-Hindi and Coordination(Kashmiri), nine of Cultural Officers, four posts of Assistant Editors (English, Gojri, Punjabi and Pahari), one of Exhibition Officer, one of Publication Officer, one of Administrative Officer, one post of Private Secretary and one of Publicity cum Public Relation Officer, speaks about the seriousness of administration towards this one of the most important department.
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