HONOURED: President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam presenting the Tholkappiyar Award to Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi at a function in Chennai on Monday. (From left) V.C. Kulandaiswamy, educationist, RM. Veerappan, chairman, Azhvargal Research Centre, are also in the picture. — Photo: S. R. Raghunathan

CHENNAI: President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on Monday presented the Tholkappiyar Award to Chief Minister M.Karunanidhi at a function here.

The award carries Rs. one lakh in cash, a medal, painting, memento and a shawl. Mr. Karunanidhi had authored an interpretative text on the grammar of Tamil, Tholkappiyam, and had made the nearly 3000-year-old work accessible to many more people.

Mr. Kalam wanted Mr. Karunanidhi and the State Government to be at the forefront of making Tamil an Internet-friendly language. Development of Tamil Unicode was an important step in this direction.

Mr. Kalam wanted the State Government to work with the Madras University and the Azhvargal Research Centre to research the period when the work was written.

Paramount importance

He wanted these three to support 20 Ph.Ds and added that research on the nature of society was of paramount importance since one could draw lessons from these.

Accepting the award, Mr. Karunanidhi said he would continue his work for Tamil and the people. The idea behind his retreat in Goa was to author a work and show people that Tholkappiyam was not a reserve forest where no one could enter; but was a park, which should be enjoyed by all. Mr. Karunanidhi said that Tholkappiyam had also aided in the growth of science and quoted an example from the work to drive home his point.

RM.Veerappan, chairman, Alvargal Research Centre, which instituted the award, said the organisation would create a corpus for carrying on with its work of recognising people who work for the advancement of Tamil language and traditions.

V.C.Kulandaiswamy, educationist, said Mr.Karunanidhi was responsible for Tamil getting the status of classical language.

Only six languages in the world had the status and Tamil was one of the two languages from India. S.Jagatharakshakan, founder-secretary, Alvargal Research Centre, and Avvai.Natarajan, educationist, spoke.

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