Karnataka: Railways' ban on Kannada seen as pro-Tamil

[Harold F. Schiffman]

SOUTHERN NEWS - KARNATAKA Dec 14, 2006

Organisations condemn Railways new language policy
Wednesday December 13 2006 12:17 IST

MANGALORE: Dakshina Kannada District Kannada Sahitya Parishat and other
organisations have opposed the recent direction of the Union Railway
Ministry on avoiding usage of all regional languages in railway stations.
The order is being opposed by several linguistic organisations, writers
and scholars as it is sought to enforcement immediately in all southern
states other than Tamil Nadu. Addressing a news conference in the city on
Tuesday district Kannada Sahithya Parishat president Pradeep Kumar Kalkura
said the order retain English and Hindi languages.

Kalkura condemning the order said the Parishat with support from various
other organisations, litterateurs and scholars will struggle in the future
days against the order and if need arises will also resort to blackening
the boards written in any other language apart from Kannada. He said the
Central government has violated the tri-language policy and has shown
disparities among the state and hence the government should immediately
expel the minister responsible for the order. Litterateur Erya
Lakshminarayana Alva called the order as a conspiracy to make entire South
India a Tamil-dominated region.

Tamil has been portrayed as the only prominent language in the South to
the ministry and hence all the regional languages in the South must come
united to fight against this order which will smother the identity and
growth of regional languages, Alva added. Scholar Dr Prabhakar Joshi,
Ahinda representative Lolaksha, Beary Sahitya Parishat President Umar U H,
Kerala Samajam President T K Rajan and others were present.

http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEK20061213015627&Topic=0&Title=Southern%20News%20-%20Karnataka&Page=K

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