The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : ‘Central’ tag likely for language varsities

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Wednesday, Dec 19, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

‘Central’ tag likely for language varsities

Staff Reporter

Photo: KV Poornachandra Kumar

First convocation: Kannada litterateur and former Chief Minister of Karnataka M.Veerappa Moily at the the convocation of Dravidian University in Kuppam on Tuesday. —

KUPPAM (Chittoor district): The Central government is considering the plea of four language/cultural universities for their classification as ‘central universities’ beginning Eleventh Five-Year Plan period to allow them access to additional funds.

M. Veerappa Moily, Chairman of the Union government’s Administrative Reforms Commission, says that he has already taken up the issue with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and explained the need for a ‘central’ tag for enabling advanced research in language studies.

Lacking attention

Addressing the maiden convocation of Dravidian University here on Tuesday, Mr. Moily admitted that Dravidian languages were not receiving the attention they deserved on a par with other languages in the country and stressed the need for the government to extensively fund such varsities.

Writing tradition

Dubbing ‘Dravidian’ as the fifth largest family of languages in the world and the second largest in Asian continent, Mr. Moily, however, expressed concern that the Dravidian languages were ‘unsafe’ and ‘definitely endangered’ as confirmed by a UNESCO study. “Among the 26 languages in the conglomerate, only three have writing tradition,” he noted.

With the Governor and Chancellor N.D. Tiwari cancelling his visit at the last minute due to inclement weather, Vice-Chancellor G. Lakshminarayana conducted the convocation proceedings. The varsity conferred honorary doctorates on V.I. Subramoniam, renowned scholar and the chief editor of ‘Dravidian Encyclopedia’, and Bh. Krishnamurti, the first of the country’s two elected fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, UK. The honour was conferred in absentia on Kamil Zvelebil, a Czech scholar who had conducted an exhaustive study of the Nilgiris tribes. Later, degrees were conferred on the post-doctorate, M.Phil and Ph.D. scholars.

APSCHE Chairperson K.C. Reddy and Registrar S. Rajasekhara Reddy took part in the proceedings.

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