Balasore: Fakir Mohan University will introduce new cross-discipline courses in the language and literature department.

Head of department Santosh Tripathy said: "Students opting for any language course will have to study the other two languages as part of the course."

The varsity already offers postgraduate courses in Odia , English and Urdu.

Besides, litterateur Fakir Mohan Senapati's life and literature and Odia contemporary literature have been made compulsory for all three postgraduate language courses.

"If a student opts for postgraduate course in Odia, he has to study English and Urdu. The two languages will carry 100 marks each in the final semester. The varsity adopted the cross-disciplinary courses to make language and literature studies more effective and viable," said Tripathy.

"This is the first such experiment at an Indian university. Currently, we offer only three language courses. If we introduce more languages in future, a student would be free to choose two other languages along with their base language. Besides, we will hold a non-credit examination on Fakir Mohan and modern literature at the end of the session. Students will only get grades on the non-credit paper," he said.

The language and literature department has 32 postgraduate seats in Odia, and 24 each in English and Urdu.

At present, varsity sources said, there are 32 students in Odia, 18 in English and six in Urdu.

A new building, dedicated to the language and literature department, was inaugurated on January 13.

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