Karnataka's Kannada minister offers lessons for non-Kannadigas

The non-Kannada speaking population residing in Karnataka can now learn Kannada on Twitter, making use of a new initiative taken up by Minister for Kannada & Culture, CT Ravi.

Ravi has put up details about the 'Kali Kannada' initiative on his Twitter account on Tuesday. Announcing the same, he said the initiative is meant for non-Kannadigas in Karnataka. "They are in our state and they are our people. So it is our responsibility to teach them our language," he said.

Each day, his team would post spoken Kannada lessons online, he said. The first lesson he posted online had a list of basic conversational Kannada phrases.

The minister's move comes at a time when there is a state-wide demand to offer government services in Kannada. Recently, the state government had directed banks to offer services in Kannada and even redo their signboards, after complaints were made that people in rural areas were finding it hard in banks with employees not conversing in the local language.