The State has stepped up its efforts to pressurise the Centre to confer the classical language status to Malayalam, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has said.
Launching here on Sunday the Platinum Jubilee celebrations of the Ambalapuzha P.K. Memorial Grandhasala, the first library that was registered with the Kerala Grandhasala Sangham, Mr. Chandy said the State was unlucky to have its mother tongue left out when other languages including Tamil, Telugu and Kannada were conferred with the coveted status.
However, efforts were on for over a year now to convince the Centre that Malayalam was indeed qualified to be accorded the status. All the necessary documents were already submitted to the Centre, he said.
The P.K. Memorial Grandhasala, which was set up in 1946 by P.N. Panicker, considered the father of the library movement in the State, was also from where Mr. Panicker had launched the Kerala Grandhasala Sangham. The P.K. Memorial Grandhasala, which owes its name to Sahithya Panchanan P.K. Narayana Pillai, is thus the first name on the registry of the Sangham and has been the nerve centre of the library and reading movements in Kerala, Mr. Chandy said.
The library’s activities over the last 75 years, which included nurturing the literary and cultural tastes of several generations, was to be commemorated through various programmes over the next one year, he said, expressing hope that the celebrations would go a long way in reviving and strengthening the reading habits of the young generation and preserving the rich cultural heritage of the State.
G. Sudhakaran, MLA, presided over the function, which had noted litterateur and theatre personality Kavalam Narayana Panicker deliver in the keynote address. District Panchayat president Prathibha Hari and others were also present.
