Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and political party leaders welcomed the Centre's decision to include PG degree in Tamil for admissions to the two-year diploma course in Archaeology.
A day after Palaniswami wrote a Demi-Official letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the matter and other leaders took exception to ignoring the Tamil language in the advertisement issued by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) with regard to the diploma course by Pt Deendayal Upadhyaya Institute of Archaeology, Nodia, the Centre issued a fresh circular including the Tamil language in it today.
In a D.O letter today thanking Modi, the Chief Minister said "I would like to express my heartfelt thanks for the immediate response to my request to include Master's degree in Tamil as one of the minimum qualification criteria for the two-year Post-Graduate Diploma in Archaeology course for the session 2020-2022''.
''I appreciate the prompt response and once again thank you for the immediate action in the matter'', he said. In yesterday's letter to the Prime Minister, Palaniswami urged him to amend the ASI guidelines and the advertisement to include Post Graduate in the Tamil language as one of the minimum qualifications and sought Modi's intervention on the matter.
Opposition DMK President M K Stalin, who had condemned the Centre for ignoring the Tamil language as the criteria for the diploma course, welcomed the inclusion of Tamil in the revised guidelines. Stating that in multi-linguistic Indian culture languages form the basis, Stalin, in a tweet urged the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre not to adopt a step-motherly attitude in respect of languages.
PMK founder Dr S Ramadoss, who had also taken exception for non-inclusion of Tamil, too welcomed the Centre's action. ''Error corrected, it's a victory for Tamil'', he tweeted.
It was regrettable that a situation has been prevailing in India that ''every time we have to fight to get recognition for the classical language of Tamil, which was one of the ancient languages of the world''.