Chennai: DMK on Tuesday pledged Rs 1 crore for establishing an exclusive endowment chair for Tamil language at the prestigious Harvard University in United States.
Making the announcement through a statement, DMK working president M.K. Stalin also expressed the hope that the chair would be established soon bringing smiles on the faces of 7.5 crore Tamils.
Stalin also listed achievements of the DMK with regard to development of Tamil language right from the days of its founder C. N. Annadurai to the current president M. Karunanidhi. “I am extremely happy that the Harvard Tamil chair is being established during the Golden Jubilee year of Annadurai's announcement in 1968 that TN will follow the two-language — Tamil and English — policy replacing the three language policy (that included Hindi),” Stalin said.
The Opposition leader also recalled according of Classical Language status to Tamil language during the UPA-1 regime due to efforts of Karunanidhi and the unanimous resolution in the TN Assembly recommending announcing Tamil as the official language of the Madras High Court during the DMK regime of 2006-2011.
“In this background, the DMK will contribute Rs 1 crore for establishment of the exclusive chair for Tamil as part of its efforts to encourage development of the language and research,” Stalin said. The Tamil Nadu Government has already allotted Rs 10 crore for establishing Tamil chair at the university.
Prestigious Harvard University in Massachusetts in US would soon boast of a Tamil chair expected to give “huge impetus” to rese-arch in one of the oldest languages of the universe, preserve palm manuscripts in digital format using world-class infrastructure and carry out comparative studies with other classical languages.
With a public campaign by two US-based Tamil-origin doctors to collect funds for setting up the chair gaining momentum, the TN Government did its bit by announcing Rs 10 crore for the project and is also part of the fundraising campaign through the International Tamil Research Institute.
