Committee to look into safeguarding Tamil schools

A SPECIAL eight-man action committee will be formed to address issues faced by Tamil schools in the country, Makkal Osai reported.

The move was announced by the Education Ministry’s corporate communications unit head Dr Manimaran Govindasamy at the Malaysia Tamil Kalvi Thesiya Manadu in Penang.

The national Tamil education conference was held in Seberang Prai with the cooperation of the state government.

There were 880 Tamil schools in the country at independence but 300 of those schools no longer exist.

Many factors contributed to this including dwindling student numbers and migration away from plantations.

The ministry with the support of the federal government will form the special team to study the situation and come up with proposals to safeguard the future of Tamil schools.

> Police in Tamil Nadu, India, recovered 35 sacks of Indian currency notes from a cattle farm and a lake which turned out to be the demonetised 500 rupee and 1,000 rupee notes, Malaysia Nanban reported.

India withdrew the notes in November 2016 in an attempt to weed out undeclared “black money”, which is a major problem in the country.

However, the effort did not succeed as expected but left many legitimate cash holders unable to exchange their notes and the economy took a hit as well.

A few days ago, residents in the Madhavaram and Retteri towns noticed unknown men discarding suspicious-looking sacks in the area.

Police who were called in found 35 sacks filled with torn notes which were allegedly earmarked to be destroyed.

Police are working to determine the value of the cash and to find the owners.