Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday arrived in Chennai and asserted that he has learned about the diversity of the ‘ancient’ Tamil language which is resonated across the United States. Modi on Monday arrived in Chennai to attend the 56th annual convocation of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras. While people gathered here for PM’s warm welcome and raised ‘Modi ki Jai’ slogans, PM Modi drew the attention of the gathering towards the relevance of Tamil language in other nations. “When I was staying in America, I spoke in Tamil language once and told everyone that this is one of the ancient languages. Even today, Tamil language echoes in entire America. During my visit to America, I realized that the entire world has a lot of expectation from India,” said Modi while addressing the gathering. During his address to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), PM Modi invoked three-millenia old Tamil poet and philosopher Kaniyan Pungundranar to highlight the essence of Indian unity in diversity and emphasise the feeling of kinship among all people in the world. Calling Tamil as the oldest language of the world during his address to the 74th UNGA session, PM Modi said that 3,000 years ago, a great poet of India, Kaniyan Pungundranar wrote in Tamil the most ancient language of the world ‘Yaadhum Oore Yaavarum Kelir’ which means ‘We harbour a feeling of kinship for all places and all people are our own.'” Modi’s remarks resumed significance amid concern raised by some parties in Tamil Nadu over alleged efforts to impose Hindi language.
