TEACH EVERY CHILD MALAYALAM

TEACH EVERY CHILD MALAYALAM

Every Malayali child should be compulsorily taught Malayalam at home, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has said.He was addressing a meeting here on Tuesday to present Kerala Sahitya Akademi fellowships for 2012.Conferring classical status alone will not promote Malayalam. The language will grow only if parents teach their children Malayalam at home. Malayalis living in the State and elsewhere should know that language grows only with daily use,” he said.He said Malayalis were not linguistic bigots. “Classical status was accorded to Malayalam after the matter was taken up with the Prime Minister,” he said.

He presented the Akademi’s fellowships to writers Zachariah and M.P. Veerendrakumar. The fellowships carry a purse of Rs.50,000, a one-sovereign gold medal, a citation, a ponnada (shawl), and a plaque each.Minister for Culture K.C. Joseph presented the Akademi’s life-time achievement awards to K.P. Sankaran, Karoor Sasi, and G. Priyadarsanan. The awards carry a purse of Rs.30,000, a citation, a ponnada (shawl), and a plaque each.Writers above the age of 50 who have made meaningful contribution to Malayalam literature are considered for the awards.

Endowments

Earlier in the day, a function was held to present the awards and endowments for 2012. Akademi president Perumbadavom Sreedharan presented the awards to E. Santhosh Kumar (novel), S. Joseph (poetry), M.N. Vinayakumar (drama), Satheesh Babu Payyannur (short story), N.K. Ravindran (literary criticism), Naduvattom Gopalakrishnan (scholarly literature), Santhosh George Kulangara (travelogue), S. Sreenivasan (translation), N.P. Hafeez Mohammed (children’s literature), and P.P. Hameed (humour).Various endowments were also presented. K.R. Namboodiri Award (Rs.2,000) was presented to V.S. Warrier ( Sree Buddhan: Jeevitham Darsanam Matham ); Kuttipuzha Award (Rs.2,000) to K.E.N. Kunjahammed ( Samooham, Sahityam, Samskaram ); Kanakasree Award (Rs. 2,000) to Prakasan Madikkai ( Moonnu Kallukalkkidayil ); Geetha Hiranyan Award (Rs.5,000) to G.R. Indugopan (Rathriyil Autoyil Oru Manushyan ); and G.N. Pillai Award was presented N.P. Sajeesh ( Drisya Desangalude Bhoopadam ).

Prof. John Kurakar