Chennai: In a move seen as a direct cultural and political counter to the Centre, the Tamil Nadu government led by Chief Minister MK Stalin announced the institution of a ‘Classical Language Literary Award’ to be conferred annually on outstanding literary works in seven Indian languages—Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Bengali, and Marathi. Notably, Hindi has been excluded from the list.

The award, carrying a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh—five times the amount given by the Sahitya Akademi—was unveiled by Stalin at the closing ceremony of the Chennai International Book Festival. He sharply criticized what he called “political interference” by the central government in literary awards, citing the........

© News9Live