IIT Madras may play Tamil invocation song in its events in addition to National Anthem

New Delhi: The IIT-Madras may play Tamil invocation song, in addition to Vande Mataram and National Anthem, in its official programmes and functions, sources in the Ministry of Education said on Wednesday.

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The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-M had in last November courted a controversy when the Tamil Nadu government took an exception to the state invocation song not being played as per protocol during the convocation of the centrally-run institution.

Tamil Nadu Higher Education Minister K Ponmudi had written a letter to then IIT-Madras director Bhaskar Ramamurthi on the issue, saying not playing the song was an obvious deviation from the protocol.

"IIT-Madras may play the song 'Tamil Thai Vazhuthu' in addition to Vande Mataram' and 'National Anthem' in its official programmes and functions. Tamil is equally an important language for the country and there is no issue in playing the state song at official events," a source said.

The issue was also raised in the Parliament by Thamizhachi Thangapandian, noted Tamil poet and Lok Sabha MP who termed not singing of invocation song at the event as "disappointing".

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The song, written by scholar Manonmaniam Pillai and set to tune by musician MS Viswanathan, is played at the beginning of all government functions in the state and the national anthem is played at the end of the function.

IIT-M held its 58th convocation virtually on November 20 in which Olympic badminton medallist PV Sindhu was the chief guest. As many as 1,962 students graduated and 2,425 degrees, including joint and dual degrees, were awarded to students on the occasion.