World conference part of effort to preserve Telugu: KCR

Hyderabad, Nov 17 (PTI) Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao today urged literary personalities and admirers of literature to enthusiastically participate in the World Telugu Conference to be organised here next month.

The state government-organised conference is being held under the aegis of the Telangana Sahitya Akademi from December 15 to 19 at different locations in the city.

"The whole city would be decked up with arches, gates, hoardings named after the famous poets who enriched not only the language but also our lives," he said.

Rao said the conference was part of an effort to preserve and strengthen the language. Recalling that Telugu has been hailed as a musical language, Rao said the language existed in Telangana for the past 2000 years.

"Telugu is known as the Ajanta Bhasha' where in all words end in vowel sounding connotations and a musical language having an ancient literary inheritance," Rao added.<br/><br/>"Nicholas Conti, a noted Western Professor called Telugu theItalian of the East', while Subrahmanya Bharathi, Tamil national poet, preferred to term it as `Sundara Telungu' (beautiful Telugu)," Rao said.

"I request the officials and the administration along with the MLAs to treat the conduct of the conference as a matter of prestige. I call upon all the literary personalities and admirers of literature to make the conference a huge success," Rao said in a statement in the assembly.

The government recently issued orders making Telugu compulsory for all students from the primary to intermediate levels in the State, he said.