CHENNAI: A two-day international conference on the `Futurology of Tamil' began here on Saturday.

Union Minister for Environment and Forest A. Raja formally inaugurated the event organised jointly by the Department of Tamil Language, University of Madras; Tamil department of Dr. MGR-Janaki Women's College and Kalaignaan Pathipagam.

S. P. Thyagarajan, Vice-Chancellor, University of Madras, presided.

Large participation

Over 700 noted Tamil professors, researchers, writers, thinkers and students from India, Singapore, Malaysia and Sri Lanka attended the programme.

The Minister also released the conference book comprising six volumes of articles, presentations and research papers.

Book released

R. M. Veerappan, president, Chennai Kamban Kazhagam, received the first copy. M. Rajendran, director, Department of Tamil Development; S. Muthukumaran, former VC, Annamalai University; C. V. Sankar, bureaucrat; Thilagavathy, additional director general of police; R. Kannan, Directorate of Public Libraries and Latha Rajendran, secretary, Dr. MGR-Janaki Women's College participated. According to M. Nandan, managing director, Kalaignaan Pathipagam, the aim of the conference was to understand the future growth of Tamil language in all spheres of science, culture, education and society.

Meet focus

The focus is as much on linguistics, literature and translation as on computer science, pedagogy, fine arts and media.

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