Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami to file a defamation suit against Tamil newspaper Dinakaran for allegedly publishing false information about him.
According to a press statement from the Chief Minister’s office, Edappadi Palaniswami had, in his Twitter page, tweeted on June 5 that Tamil must be provided as an optional language in other states and that would be a service done for the development of Tamil, which is one of the oldest languages of the world. The tweet came at a time when Tamil Nadu was expressing its opposition to the three-language policy proposed by the National Education Policy draft which was made public on May 31.
The tweet was also deleted from the Chief Minister’s Twitter page hours after it was posted. “The news of the Chief Minister’s tweet was published by Tamil Daily Dinakaran on June 6 under the headline ‘Chief Minister Edappadi supports three language policy which imposes Hindi, leaders strongly oppose’. This was beyond the truth and was in a manner that brings disrepute to his fame and to his designation,” reads the press statement.
The three language policy which was initially mentioned in the draft National Education Policy created furore in Tamil Nadu since the policy made it compulsory for students in non-Hindi speaking states to learn Hindi, English and their regional language. Students in Hindi speaking states had the option of choosing any language in addition to Hindi and English. This kickstarted a storm of campaigns on social media in which the people from Tamil Nadu expressed their staunch opposition by trending ‘Stop Hindi Imposition’. Political leaders also made public their views on the subject.
The Central government, in an attempt to do damage control, got the ministers with a Tamil background – Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar – to tweet in Tamil and reassure people that Hindi will not be imposed. Soon after this, the draft National Education Policy was amended to remove the mandatory Hindi clause and leaving the choice of three languages to the students themselves.
Source: The News Minute