Two months ago, we had complained about a discriminatory policy of LIC. When you take a policy and sign your name in Kannada, LIC demands that someone else should vouch that it is your signature. This requirement is not imposed if you sign in English. We had pointed out that according to General Clauses Act, 1897, a sign is any mark that is put to authenticate a document. It need not be in any specific language and need not be in any language at all. So if a person says that the mark he is putting is his signature which authenticates the document in question, there is no need for anyone else to attest to that fact.
We had written to the LIC head office in Mumbai to stop this needless harassment of Kannada-writing policy holders. We are happy to inform that today we received a call from the LIC office in Mysore saying that instructions have been issued to all offices to stop the discrimination and not insist on authentication of Kannada signatures. We congratulate LIC on this prompt action.
An aside. The caller said that instructions have been issued not to insist on authentication of vernacular signatures. Many people use the "vernacular language" as an equivalent to "local language", but fail to realize that "vernacular" has an offensive connotation, coming from the root "verna" meaning "local slave". So it is better to drop it and use "local" instead.
M.A.Sridhar, Mysore Grahakara Parishat