A statue for ‘Mother Tamil’ will be installed in Madurai at a cost of Rs. 100 crore, and it will be on the lines of the Statue of Liberty in New York, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa announced in the Assembly on Tuesday.
Ms. Jayalalithaa also told the House that a park, representing the five agro-climatic zones of the traditional Tamil country, would be formed there. The landscape in ancient Tamil literature is classified into these five zones, which form the backdrop and milieu of the writings.
Later, an official said Vandiyur tank in Madurai is the most likely site for the proposed statue. This is not the first time that Mother Tamil, a personification of the Tamil language, gets a statue. During the valedictory of the fifth World Tamil Conference in Madurai in January 1981, the then Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran unveiled one.
Three new awards – one for translating Tamil literature into other languages; another for lifetime contribution to Tamil and Tamil literature and the third for promotion of Tamil computing – were instituted. Each award would carry a cash prize of Rs. 1 lakh. The first two awards would be named after G.U. Pope and Umaru Pulavar while the third would be known as Chief Minister’s Tamil Computing Award.
After the completion of a memorial for freedom fighter, Velu Nachiyar, in Sivaganga district at a cost of Rs. 80 lakh, the government would organise event to mark her birth anniversary, the Chief Minister said, referring to a request of Communist Party of India leader S. Gunasekaran.
