CHENNAI: Dr R Chandrasekaran (47), assistant professor of Tamil, Government Arts and Science College, Mullipuram, Kangeyam has been appointed as the first permanent Director of the Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CICT) since it started functioning from Chennai in 2008. He will hold the post for a period of three years. Previously, the institute was functioning as Centre for Excellence of Classical Tamil in the campus of the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore.
Union Minister for Human Resources Development Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank tweeted Chandrasekaran’s appointment saying, “This shows our commitment to the promotion of Tamil language. I thank Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami who was helpful in this appointment.”
Interestingly, the Union Minister also tagged actor Rajinikanth apart from the Prime Minister, Union Home Minister, TN Chief Minister, and School Education Minister.
Thanking the Central government for appointing him to the key position, Chandrasekaran said, “I wish to speed up the activities of the Central Institute of Classical Tamil in all possible ways. Tamil Chairs should be established in all leading universities within and out of the country.”Chandrasekaran who has been teaching Tamil for the past two decades, hails from Namakkal.
He has one PhD each from Bharathiar University and Periyar University. He also obtained five MA degrees from different universities. Chandrasekaran’s research interests include Sangam and Medieval literature, Indology, devotional literature and tribal studies.
He has authored 18 research books and 13 textbooks and published 92 research papers in various journals. He received the Young Scholar award of the CICT for the year 2009-10 from the then President Pranab Mukherjee.
The demand for the appointment of a permanent director has been there for over a decade. VCK MP D Ravikumar who has been raising this issue often, told Express: “I welcome the appointment. In the past, many high-profile personalities were chosen for this coveted post but the proposals were realised. I hope the present appointment is above the earlier selections.”
In 2017, when there was a move to affiliate CICT to the Central University of Tamil Nadu, CM Palaniswami, who is the chairman of the governing board of the institute, had urged the Centre to give up the idea and instead take steps to elevate it as a Centre of Research and Learning in Classical Tamil.