The Hindu : National : `Thirukkural': order withdrawn

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Saturday, Jul 10, 2004

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National

`Thirukkural': order withdrawn

By Our Staff Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JULY 9. The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry today withdrew its earlier order holding the printing of the English translation of "Thirukkural", a Tamil classic by sage Thirvalluvar, following protests by political personalities from the South.

The decision was apparently taken at the intervention of the Communications and Information Technology Minister, Dayanidhi Maran, who met the HRD Minister, Arjun Singh, today and conveyed to him the sentiments of the Tamils.

The 2,000 year-old epic is more like a code of ethics but has been categorised as a religious book by the Ministry that has asked the NCERT to print the books.

The DMK leader, M. Karunanidhi, reportedly took a serious note of the development and even shot off a letter to Mr. Singh apart from asking Mr. Maran to pursue the matter. Mr. Arjun Singh reportedly told Mr. Maran that printing of "Thirukural" had been witheld due to an "error" at a senior level.

The printing of "Vedanta" by senior Congress leader, Karan Singh, has also been resumed but that of "Aaj ki Shikshak" by the outgoing National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) director, J.S.Rajput, has been withheld.

Karan Singh expressed his ire at the manner in which his book was stopped and labelled "saffronised." He had spoken to several Members of Parliament yesterday. The matter was slated to be taken up in Parliament.

The HRD Ministry had earlier this week ordered the Publications Division of the NCERT to `immediately' stop printing the three books. Today, the NCERT received another order seeking to resume the printing of the two books. The books had been approved for printing about a year ago by the National Democratic Alliance Government.

Officially, it is being said that the Ministry had received complaints that the proper procedure was not being followed in the printing of books following which the printing was witheld. "After proper verification it was found that the complaints were not correct and hence the printing of the two books has been resumed while things were still being reviewed in the case of third,'' Ministry officials said.

"Vedanta" is described as a collection of passages from the "Gita" and the "Upanishads." While "Vedanta" and "Thirukkural" were described as religious books by the Ministry, Mr. Rajput's book was stalled.

It was stated officially that the works needed to be looked into before being printed. `Aaj ki Shikshak' is being edited by Lata Pande and is about the role of teachers in the struggle for Independence.

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