Telugu will be TTD's lingua franca

State follows example of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu

TIRUPATI: Apparently stung by the effective implementation of the mother tongue as the official language in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, in contrast to its non-compliance in its own administration, the TTD on Tuesday announced that the official correspondence in all its offices would henceforth be only in Telugu.

"Living as we do in a democracy, we must respect the language used by the majority and not the one used by the least number of people -- obviously English," averred the TTD's Joint Executive Officer, N. Mukteswara Rao, at a review meeting with all the heads of departments.

Howlers tolerable

Mr. Rao said that even if the staff committed grammatical mistakes and errors in the note files, they need not bother about them much, as the language and drafting prowess would improve with constant use. Plus, there are always the handbooks on English-Telugu equivalents that we are going to supply to the staff. That should make their jobs easier, he said.

New Vahanams

Lord Govindaraja, the presiding deity at Tirupati, would soon get a set of ten brand new Vahanams and a proposal to this end has been finalised. Mr. Mukteswara Rao said that work is underway to chisel out a new Garuda Vahanam and Gaja Vahanam in wood for the temple of Goddess Padmavathi. Once the carving work on wood is over, it would be copper plated and given a gold covering, he added.

Courtesy: The Hindu