On Tuesday, the Tamil Nadu government announced that it would pay Rs 5 crore to help Jawaharlal Nehru University create a department of Tamil literature (JNU). The state government’s ruling specifies that the approved amount will be used as a fixed deposit, with the income generated being used to cover teachers’ salaries and other essential expenses.
A contract between the Director of Tamil Development and JNU will be inked before the Tamil literature department is created. “Tamil Department of Jawaharlal Nehru University has been expanded as a separate department of Tamil Literature. Other areas of study include Tamil and Dravidian Linguistics Studies, Tamil and Southern History, Social Studies, and Tamil and Social Studies. For this aim, a fund of Rs 5 crore has been ordered “In a statement, the Tamil Nadu government said.
The Department of Tamil Literature will provide comparative research, graduate-level coursework, professional literary translations, and project implementation by visiting academics. Along with coordinating with other international universities, a residence programme for Tamil scholars and workshops for teachers would also be run, according to the official announcement. At the moment, the Center for Indian Language at JNU provides a PhD programme in Tamil. However, it does not provide a Tamil-language master’s programme. In a letter to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, JNU Vice-Chancellor Santishree D Pandit congratulated him for the idea and remarked that the state government’s financial assistance was a “huge service to Tamil development.”
