Karunanidhi to take up Sri Lankan Tamils issue with PM again

A week after asking the Centre to press Colombo for solving "once and for all" the problems of Tamils in Sri Lanka, DMK president and Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi today decided to take up the issue again with prime minister Manmohan Singh.

This was decided at a meeting of ministers and officials chaired by Karunanidhi to discuss various resolutions adopted at last week's World Classical Tamil Conference, a government release here said.

Chief secretary KS Sripathy had already written to external affairs secretary in this regard, the release said.

Further, Karunanidhi is scheduled to write to prime minister asking the Centre to impress upon Colombo to find a solution to the decades-long ethnic issue, it said.

Other decisions taken today include proposing a resolution in Parliament for declaring Tamil a constitutional language, pressing the Centre to make Tamil as court language at Madras high court and seeking increased grants for development of Tamil.

It was also proposed to set up a separate ministry in the state to look after welfare of Tamils in foreign countries and development of Tamil language in these countries, it said.