In a bid to encourage those opting to study Kannada, the Kannada Development Authority (KDA) on Sunday gave away scholarships to 80 post-graduate students of the language in universities of other states.
Handing over the scholarships to the students, MP and BJP general secretary HN Ananth Kumar called for promoting innovative usages of Kannada to ensure that it is used more and more in administration and education.
“Nowadays, there is a lot of mix of Kannada and English words. We should also have computer programs in Kannada. Especially in rural areas, we should see to it that children learn computer operations in their own language. This will help the language grow,” he explained.
Heads of Kannada departments from universities outside the state, spoke about difficulties in Kannada studies.
K Sharada, Kannada professor, Department of Kannada, Dravid University, Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh, said that in 2007, there were only three students, and even they were irregular. However, the number had increased, especially over the past three years during which scholarships were given. About 13 students were enrolled for PG studies in Kannada in 2010, she added.
“It is difficult to run the Kannada department within the state. Imagine the difficulty in running it outside the state,” said Tamil Selvi, Kannada professor, from Madras University.
Responding to one of the requests by a teacher on providing scholarships to the MPhil and PhD candidates, KDA chairman Mukhyamantri Chandru said that giving those students scholarships such as the one given to Masters students, wouldn’t be possible because they were not regular students. He, however, said he would look into funding the theses or papers the students produced.
