Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Manipuri comes to Moodbidri

Manipuri comes to Moodbidri N Dinesh Nayak | TNN

Mangalore: Gone are the days when people in the South mistook the people of North-East as Chinese or Japanese. Thanks to the large inflow of students from the Seven Sisters, we see many such faces among us. In fact, their fine arts have become an integral part of cultural activities on the campuses.

As a step forward in this direction, Manipuri, a major language of the North-East, is set to find a place in the academic activities here. For the first time in the state, Alva’s College, Moodbidri, will introduce Manipuri as an optional subject at the degree level from the next semester. Mangalore University has approved the proposal submitted by the department of Indian languages of the college, in this connection.

College chairman M Mohan Alva told The Times of India that his college has around 300 students from Manipur, and it would help them if they were provided the opportunity to learn their language as an optional subject. The syllabus had been prepared with help from experts from Manipur University, and the department has appointed staff to teach, conduct examinations and evaluate the students, he said, adding that he had plans to introduce the language of Meghalaya too, as an optional subject soon.

Chungkham Priya Devi, lecturer, said it would help Manipuri students who are in a large number here. All these years, they had to choose either optional English or Hindi. They were not comfortable with Hindi.


MELTING POT OF CULTURES: Alva’s College will introduce Manipuri as an optional language