JOIN USPM Modi launches new building of CICT in Chennai
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday inaugurated the new building of the Central Institute of Classical Tamil in Perumbakkam on the outskirts of the city, and said the development will give a wider canvas to students and researchers.
CICT was formerly known as the Centre of Excellence for Classical Tamil (CECT) and was functioning at the campus of the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore from 2006 to 2008. In 2008, the CECT was moved to Chennai and renamed CICT.
Talking about the richness of the Tamil language, Modi said one of the happiest moments of his life was when he got a chance to speak a few words in the world's oldest language, Tamil, at the United Nations.
“The Sangam classics are our window to the rich society and culture of the ancient times. Our Government also had the honour of setting up the 'Subramania Bharati Chair' on Tamil Studies at Banaras Hindu University. Located in my Parliamentary constituency, this will drive greater curiosity about Tamil,” Modi said in his speech.
Contending that the Centre has given great emphasis on the promotion of Indian languages and Indian Knowledge Systems in the National Education Policy 2020, he said Tamil can now be studied as a classical language in school education at the secondary level or middle level.
“Tamil is one of the languages in the Bhasha-Sangam where school students get familiar with 100 sentences in various Indian languages in audio, videos. The largest e-content of Tamil has been digitised under the Bharatavani project,” he said.
He also called upon this talented Tamil diaspora to help develop Tamil language content in STEM courses. “We are also developing an Artificial intelligence-based language-translation tool to translate English language online courses into twelve different Indian languages including Tamil,” he added.
The new campus is fully funded by the Union Government and is built at a cost of Rs 24 Crore. CICT, which was operating from a rented building so far. Officials said the new campus is equipped with a spacious library, an e-library, seminar halls and a multimedia hall.
An autonomous organisation under the Union Ministry of Education, CICT is contributing to the promotion of classical Tamil by doing research activities so as to establish the ancientness and uniqueness of the Tamil language. The institute library has a rich collection of over 45,000 ancient Tamil Books.
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