The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : NRI on a mission to promote Telugu

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Thursday, Oct 15, 2009
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

NRI on a mission to promote Telugu

Gollapudi Srinivasa Rao

Venkateswara Rao calls for donations to set up a Telugu centre in the University of California

V. Venkateswara Rao

WARANGAL: It is the time for lovers of Telugu language, literature and culture to contribute their mite for preservation and propagation of the language at global level.

An NRI and senior professor of computers at the University of California, Davis, Vemuri Venkateswara Rao is running from pillar to post to set up a permanent Telugu centre in the University of California at Berkley campus. “The only centre teaching Telugu is at the University of Wisconsin which will be closed soon. It is time to set up another centre in the US.”

Other languages taught

According to him, about one lakh Telugu people live in Silicon Valley which is 30 miles from Berkley. About eight lakh Telugu people are living in America.

Prof. Rao said about 250 universities were teaching Sanskrit across the globe, 100 universities were teaching Hindi or Urdu and at least 12 universities outside India were teach Tamil, but not a single university was teaching Telugu which was second important language in India.

The University of California had asked Prof. Rao to deposit five million dollars (Rs. 25 crore) to set up a Telugu centre. So far, the efforts only yielded just Rs. 1.5 milion dollars. Prof. Rao, who is in India on a three-month assignment, proposes to approach Chief Minister K. Rosaiah to seek help from Andhra Pradesh government. Stating that farmers of West Godavari had sent donations for construction of Yale University in the 17th century, Prof. Rao said he was confident of raising funds to set up a Telugu department in the University of California, which would go a long way in spreading Telugu at international level.

Prof. Rao, hailing from Tuni near Vishakhapatnam, had migrated to the USA in 1961 for studies and had settled there since teaching Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to computer engineering students at the University of California.

Those willing to donate can contact him at rvemuri@gmail.com .

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