Overview
- Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath inaugurated the fourth edition at Namo Ghat on December 2.
- Organisers say 50 Tamil teachers will teach short modules in 50 Varanasi schools, with IIT Madras’s Vidya Shakti portal offering Tamil lessons to 15,000 students across 650 schools.
- Key exchanges include the ‘Tamil Karpom’ study tours for about 300 UP college students to institutions in Tamil Nadu and curated visits to sites in Varanasi, Prayagraj and Ayodhya.
- The Sage Agastya vehicle expedition set off from Tenkasi toward Kashi, spotlighting civilisational links and scheduled to arrive in Varanasi on December 10.
- Adityanath announced UP’s vocational curriculum now includes Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, Marathi and Bengali, while Pradhan invited Tamil Nadu CM M. K. Stalin and criticised politically driven linguistic divisions; the programme is slated to conclude with a valedictory in Rameswaram, where the Prime Minister is expected to attend.