Madurai
The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has directed the State to popularise the Tamil Distance Education Programme after taking cognisance of the fact that the government had established the Tamil Virtual Academy in Chennai to teach Tamil to Tamils and non-Tamils.
While disposing of a contempt petition filed by R. Lakshminarayanan, who sought a direction to the State to take necessary steps to teach Tamil through correspondence to non-Tamils, a Division Bench of Justices K. K. Sasidharan and P. D. Audikesavalu directed the State to periodically advertise the course to popularise it.
“Hire stalls at book fairs and exhibitions, issue circulars and pamphlets, provide a separate television channel and establish study centres of the academy at schools and colleges to popularise the course,” the court said.
However, the court also observed that primordial focus should be to encourage people by creating interest to voluntarily learn the classical language through user-friendly programmes rather than adopting forceful or penalising methods which alienated them from mainstream Tamil culture.
The case has been posted for reporting of compliance on February 11.
