Helpline launched for Tamil conference

June 16, 2010 12:56 am | Updated 04:20 am IST - Chennai:

Parithi Ellamvazhuthi, Information Minister makes the first call after launch ing Statewide `Aircel Helpline Number' for World Classcial Tamil Conference in Chennai on Tuesday. KVP. Baskar, operations director - South Aircel Cellular is in the picture. Photo : M.Vedhan

Parithi Ellamvazhuthi, Information Minister makes the first call after launch ing Statewide `Aircel Helpline Number' for World Classcial Tamil Conference in Chennai on Tuesday. KVP. Baskar, operations director - South Aircel Cellular is in the picture. Photo : M.Vedhan

Information Minister Parithi Ellamvazhuthi has launched a helpline to cater for visitors to the World Classical Tamil Conference.

Making the first call to Aircel's helpline number 73 73 00 00 00, Mr. Ellamvazhuthi said the helpline would offer information on events, including venues, speakers, timings and cultural programmes, travel and accommodation, emergency information and contact details of committees, control room and helpdesks.

K.V.P. Baskar, operations director – south, Aircel, said that the 24-hour helpline would offer assistance in both Tamil and English from June 15 to 29. Users could call the number from any mobile or landline phone. The call cost would be that of a local call.

Along with the helpline, Aircel, in association with Coimbatore city police, would place 15 helpdesks at strategic locations across the city during the entire week of the conference to assist visitors in security-related queries, guidance on routes, locations and maps. Free mobile charge stations would be set up at the venues.

“Useful contribution”

Unveiling the helpline number, N. Ram, Editor-in-chief, TheHindu , said the helpline was a practical and useful contribution to the historic event.

The public relations and publicity committee came up with the idea of the theme song to be written by Chief Minister and composed by A.R. Rahman, which was successfully launched. “Going by downloads of the theme song from the internet, it is a real success and widely appreciated,” Mr. Ram said.

The demand to make Tamil a classical language was long pending for over 100 years. The DMK, especially the Chief Minister, was able to make a decisive push when favourable political circumstances presented, he said. There was a need to raise awareness among younger generation as there was some concern that the youth was losing touch with the rich literary heritage of major languages, Mr. Ram noted.

He said that the important challenge was to motivate the younger generation to use Tamil on the Net. There was tremendous use of Chinese and Mandarin on internet. “Internet use grows not just by providing infrastructure but by a rich content to attract people to the Net,” Mr. Ram added.

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