Communication in Tamil with Govt depts soon - Vasudeva

by P. Krishnaswamy

Leader of the Democratic Left Front (DLF) and newly appointed Minister of National Languages and Social Integration Vasudeva Nanayakkara expressed optimism that the Tamil-speaking communities living in different parts of the country will be in a position to communicate with all government institutions in their mother tongue in the next few years.

His ministry was taking all steps for mobilising resources for fully implementing Tamil as official language together with Sinhala and ensuring bilingual functions of officials in all Government institutions in the areas of concentration of the Tamil-speaking people, he said.

The Ministry would take steps to recruit translators, impart education on language skills, conduct supervision of staff and institute follow-up action, the Minister said.

He admitted that leftist leaders who formed allies of ruling parties in the past could not do much to alleviate grievances of the Tamil-speaking people, although they had advocated their cause, because of the conflict state that was prevailing.

But they had done certain things for the minority communities including citizenship rights of the plantation Tamils who were disenfranchised long ago by the UNP, bringing Tamil language into official status and doing away with the standardization on ethnic and communal basis.