Mangalore, Dec 19: State and Central government have neglected the matter of conferring of classical language status to Kannada and the classical status conferred on the language was just eyewash. This is what Prof B A Vivek Rai has to say, presiding over the 'Alva's Vishwa Nudisiri Virasat' programme on Thursday evening, at Vidyagiri in Moodabidri.
Speaking about the development that took place in Tamilnadu once Tamil was declared as a classical language, Prof Rai said that huge amount of central funds were released, Tamil Research Centres were opened not just in Universities in Tamilnadu but also outside, Tamil language centre was opened by the state government, number of Tamil literary works were translated into other languages and several other laudable work were done by the state as well as the Central government.
"Here we have failed to anything to develop the language after the classical status was conferred. The funds that are released to classical languages are symbolic both politically and administratively. Hence a full-fledged study centre must be opened in Karnataka at the earliest," he said.
The kind of work to be taken up at this Centre should be decided by holding discussions with concerned and also by looking at the way other study centres pertaining to other classical languages have been doing, he said adding that translation of rich text from other languages to Kannada and vice-versa, translation and documentation of manuscripts, uploading the same on internet, making multi-lingual lexicon are some of the works this centre can take up.
Opining that that 'pro-Kannada' voice have weakened in the national capital, Prof Rai said that this was primarily the reason for the Kannadigas failing to get their share of development. He said that in such a situation there was a need to open a Karnataka Study Centre in Delhi, which would take up apolitical work, specifically preparing the language to meet the contemporary demands.
Village is the world
Calling the villages as worlds in themselves, Prof Rai said that the forced industrialization in villages is the biggest tragedy.
He said that the proposed thermal power project in Niddodi has to be dropped.
“In a juncture of time when paddy cultivation is shrinking, we see lush patches of paddy crops swaying in Niddodi area. Let fly ash not fall into our rice bowls,” said Prof Rai also registering his objection to Nethravati River Diversion project.
Rural University
Proposing to the government to start what is called 'Rural University', Prof Rai said that the varsity should aim at educating the rural and the tribal masses.
“By doing so even Karnataka can carve a distinct place in the world map for integrating education and development in a rather distinct manner,” he said adding that one such Universities is functioning in Columbia and in India itself an Adivasi Academy was started in 2000 by Dr G N Devi, a researcher at Tejghar in Baroda.
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