President At Telugu Conference Close, Calls Telugu Great

Addressing the five-day World Telugu Conference (WTC) at Lal Bahadur Stadium on its last day with Governor E S L Narasimhan, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and other top officials in attendance, President Ram Nath Kovind surprised the gathering by speaking in Telugu, saying "desa bhashalandu Telugu lessa" ("Telugu is the best of the nation's languages").

In his talk the President spoke of the language's "great" heritage, saying the history of Telugu culture and literature was as old as human civilization. He also spoke about those who had contributed to helping it flourish, including translators of the Mahabharatha Nannayya Bhattu and Thikkana, saint-poet Annamacharya, Vijayanagaram emperor Krishnadevaraya, pre-independence revolutionary Chakali Ilamma, social reformer Bhagyareddy Verma, designer of the Indian tricolour Pingali Venkaiah, tribal leader Komaram Bheem, human rights activist and prolific poet Vattikota Alwar Swamy and celebrated Indian revolutionary leader Alluri Sitharama Raju. The President also mentioned former Presidents Dr Rajendra Prasad, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Varahagiri Venkata Giri, and former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao, who were of Telugu lineage.

"It's no wonder then that Telugu is the most widely spoken language today in India after Hindi," Kovind said.

He also added that Telugu was also a global language today as it was spoken by Telugus across the world. The language could be heard and read in countries across the world, especially in the United States of America where it was for all practical purposes a public language with doctors, engineers, IT employees and even Microsoft chief Satya Nadella speaking it.

The President expressed happiness that the World Telugu Conference would be conducted every year henceforth, and ended his speech by reciting the poem "Ye Desamegina, Yendukadilina" by Rayaprolu Subba Rao.

Speaking at the same session earlier, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao went down memory lane to speak of how as a degree student in 1974 he had attended the WTC in the Nizam College grounds. He announced that the World Telugu Conference would be held hereon for two days every year in December. He also pointed out to how his government had made Telugu a must in the state's schools, and said that a policy for the development of the language would be announced in January. The problems of Telugu pundits would also be resolved soon, he said.