Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Tamil is the oldest language in the world while addressing to the students of IIT Madras on Monday, a day after he returned from his week-long US trip, and trying to define value he attaches to it as well as to the Tamil people.
He corrected the disinformation and misconception that Bharatiya Janata Party was for Hindi, Hindu and Hindustan.
In his speech at the United Nations General Assembly late last week in New York the prime minister referred a great Tamilian poet Kaniyan Pungundranar who had lived some 3,000 years ago.
Modi said the poet had wrote in Tamil “y a-dum, oo-ray, yaav-rum ke-rir,” which means we belong to all places and to everyone.
The PM tried to emphasize that the sense of belonging beyond borders in unique in India.
Prior to the UNGA speech Modi addressed to a crowd of about 50,000 people in Houston at an event dubbed as Howdy Modi. He responded to the question Howdy Modi saying everything is fine in India. He answered in several Indian languages including Tamil.
At the Bloomberg Global Business Forum in the US the prime minister made a strong pitch for India as a destination for foreign investors and said the nation is comfortable in conducting business in English.
Modi is now in Chennai attending the convocation ceremony of the IIT Madras.
