No Kannada schools will be closed, promises CM

BANGALORE: Chief minister Jagadish Shettar on Saturday said that none of the 13,000 Kannada schools facing shortage of students will be closed.
"We will not take any decision that is against the wishes of the people or the language of the state. We will not close any Kannada school even if it means a burden on the exchequer," Shettar said. He gave the assurance after Sudheendra Kulkarni, media advisor to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and litterateur Chandrashekar Kambar raised the issue at a book release function in the city.The chief minister also said that the government will soon come out with a mission programme for maximizing the use of internet for enrichment of Kannada language. He also promised early action on the the issue of unicode for Kannada language, approval of which has been pending for the last several months.
Earlier, Kulkarni mentioned about the closure of these schools. "I am pained to hear that 13,000 Kannada schools are going to be closed in my home state. That should not happen." He batted for the use of internet to sustain and enrich Kannada further. "In fact all native languages in India can be saved by using internet," Kulkarni said. Litterateur Chandrashekar Kambar advocated education in the mother tongue till tenth standard, saying it was a vision envisaged by Mahatma Gandhi himself.
In 2 yrs, half of India will have Aadhaar
In less than two years, 60 crore Indians will be given multi-purpose Aadhaar cards, Nandan Nilekani, chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), said here on Saturday. "We have distributed 21 crore cards so far. By next year, it will reach 40 crore and within a year of that, every other Indian will have these cards. It is a unique way to include everyone. It means recognition of each individual," he said.On internet usage, Nilekani said application of technology is a profound idea. Sudheendra Kulkarni, media adviser to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, said that everyone should become internet satyagrahis. "We are Indian citizens and most of us are now netizens of the world. The time has come for us to be internet satyagrahis," he said.