Chennai: Tamil Nadu government on Thursday announced establishing a chair in the name of Bharat Ratna MGR (AIADMK founder and former chief minister M. G. Ramachandran) at the International Institute of Tamil Studies, and also create Tamil chairs at top educational institutions in the world like London’s Oxford
University and South Africa’s Johannesburg University. Announcing several measures for the development of Tamil language, under rule 110 in the Assembly on Thursday, Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami said the MGR Arts and Social development Research chair would be setup to commemorate the birth centenary of the former chief minister MGR and to showcase to the country and the world, his contributions to society, arts, Tamil language and people’s welfare.
“The chair at the International Institute of Tamil Studies will have a corpus fund of Rs 1 crore,” he said, amid thumping of desks by the Treasury Benches. The CM also announced to set up of Tamil chairs at Oxford and Johannesburg Universities in London and South Africa, besides in Sri Lanka’s University of Jaffna and University of Malaya in Malaysia.
“Tamil is the mother of all languages. To develop and promote it further, the government will allocate Rs 5 crore annually for instituting Tamil chairs in countries where the population of Tamil speaking people is significant,” Mr Palaniswami informed.
