Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan today released 55 rare and valuable literary works, representing the country’s five classical languages. These are Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, and Odia. The books have been published by the Central Institute of Indian Languages. The Minister also released 13 books along with a Tirukkural Sign Language series by the Central Institute of Classical Tamil.

 

Talking to reporters in New Delhi, Mr Pradhan said, India’s languages connect and unite the nation’s society. He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emphasised that all Indian languages are national languages. The Minister also highlighted that last year, the government recognised five more Indian languages as classical languages due to their ancient origins. These are Marathi, Telugu, Bengali, Assamese, Pali, and Prakrit.

 

The Minister said, education from pre-school to high-end research should be in Indian languages. He said an initiative is underway to provide education up to class five in the mother tongue. Mr Pradhan said that engineering and medical science courses have been designed in Indian languages.