india

Updated: Jun 05, 2019 23:42 IST

In a tweet on Wednesday Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to include Tamil as the third optional language for students in states, but deleted it four hours later.

The ministry of human resources development is currently inviting suggestions on the draft National Education Policy, after an expert panel led by former Indian Space Research Organisation chief K Kasturirangan handed it over to the Centre last week.

Earlier this week, the Centre tweaked the draft after uproar in the south over the adoption of a three-language formula in schools — Hindi, English and the local mother tongue in non-Hindi states. The revised draft, however, allows students who wish to change one or more of the three languages they are studying in Grade 6 or Grade 7, in their modular Board Examinations some time during secondary school.

Also read: ‘Make Tamil official language in central government offices’, says DMK’s MK Stalin

In Tamil Nadu, parties of every political shade — from the opposition DMK to the Left and actor Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam — slammed the report, which they saw as a precursor to the imposition of Hindi “The DMK will never allow imposition of Hindi. It will raise its voice in Parliament and outside and strive to stall it,” DMK’s MP Kanimozhi Karunandhi said

On Wednesday, EPS tweeted from his personal account, “Request Hon’ble PM @narendramodi ji to include Tamil as an optional language for study in other states. This will be a great service to one of the most ancient languages of the world.”

It was deleted by afternoon.

Earlier in the day, opposition Dravida Munntera Kazhagam president MK Stalin demanded that Tamil be made the official language in all central government offices in the state.

“The Centre is trying to impose Hindi through the three-language formula. We have succeeded in stalling it. But, the DMK is determined to make Tamil a functional language in all Central Government offices,” he said.

Also read: ‘Question of Hindi being imposed does not arise,’ says K Kasturirangan