Students With Master's In Tamil Language Are Now Eligible To Apply For PG Diploma In Archaeology

In a significant development the central government has included Master's Degree in Tamil language in the list of basic qualifications required for seeking admission to the two-year PG Diploma course in Archaeology at the Pandit Deenadayal Upadhyaya Institute of Archaeology.

The decision to include Tamil language alongside other languages in the list of required minimum qualification comes in the wake of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to direct ASI to include the South Indian language for obtaining admission to the PG Diploma programme in Archaeology at the concerned institute.

Thanking the Prime Minister for inclusion of Tamil language, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami tweeted, "I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to our Hon'ble Prime Minister @PMOIndia ji, for the immediate response to my request to include Master's degree in Tamil as one of the minimum qualification criteria for the two-year Post-Graduate Diploma in Archaeology course."

There were about 48,000 inscriptions in all the languages that had been published by various agencies in India, including the ASI, of which more than 28,000 inscriptions were in Tamil language alone, Palaniswami said as reported in TOI.

Recently, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) under the Ministry of Culture had released an advertisement for admission to the PG Diploma in Archaeology course for the session 2020-22 at the Pandit Deenadayal Upadhyaya Institute of Archaeology. The circular had included several languages as the basic minimum requirement for admission to the course while omitting Tamil language.