Sacha wrote:
I take your point but in the past, languages were taught because they
were useful in diplomacy or commerce. French is the language of
diplomacy and Spanish is spoken in large tracts of the trading world.
I don't know if that's the case with Urdu or Hindustani so I don't know
if those languages will be useful in a modern child's business life.

Given how a lot of UK work is now farmed out to India to get it done on the
cheap (see call centres + IT work for the obvious examples), I can see there
being a call for Indian languages.