Travel Diary

To: [email protected] From: "K. Kalyanasundaram" Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 20:20:30 +0100 Subject: Re: [e-suvadi] Travel diary 23.01.02 Reply-to: [email protected]
Dear Kannan and fellow Suvadians: It is very encouraging to learn from the Travel Diaries of Kannan phenomenal support and support for THF coming from various quarters. We need to follow this up with concrete steps. If I may, I would like to suggest the following: i) Wherever possible we need to subscribe all interested parties who have email facilities to this forum so that continuous dialogue and discussions can take place. ii) a MOU (memorandum of understanding that puts down in broad terms details of collaborative efforts to be undertaken in coming years) be signed by THF with each and every interested institution as soon as possible. MOUs need not be very elaborate legal docs but plain listing of areas of collaboration envisaged, persons to be involved, deliverables from each side with tentative dates. Official signing up of MOUs are beneficial to all of us. First it puts in concrete terms the evolution of the collaborative effort. Secondly they can help participating institutions and THF to seek financial support for the project with potential sponsors within Tamilnadu, India and abroad, that there are firm committments from parties who hold major resources (e.g. palm-leaf manuscripts). Thirdly, MOUs serve as a framework for the concerned parties to plan further details and ensure that ideas are implemented in time. Fourthly with the demonstration of multi-front effort that involves many key institutions of Tamilnadu, private companies, industrialists, philonthropists... can be readily convinced to join and support the cause. Without these MOUs, we may be going round and round in circles stating the same objectives in many different ways and all exchanges (direct meets, emails, ..) reduced to courtesy exchanges. Based on earlier exchanges Kannan had so far (via email and direct face-to-face meetings), I can think of MOUs with following institutions be signed in a month or so (before Kannan leaves India): a) oriental manuscripts library of Chennai b) u ve caminata aiyar library, Chennai c) roja muthiah library, Chennai d) international institute of Tamil studies, chennai e) institute of Asian studies, chennai f) maraimalai adikaL library, chennai g) Tamil Virtual University, chennai i) Madras University /Tamil Dept j) serfoji mahal library, tanjore k) Tamil university, tanjore l) Madurai University, madurai If people like Chellappan (President of Kani Thamizh Sangam, Chennai), Prof. Chandra Bose, Mr. Anto Peter can help, one can even plan a 2-3 hours public ceremony to be held in Presidency College or other venues in Chennai within Chennai, within a month, to be presided by "Padma Shri" Dr. M. Anandakrishann and/or "Padma Bhushan" Prof. V.C. Kulandaisamy (yes, we just learnt the pleasant news about the conferring of these national titles at this year's republic day). Kannan can give a 30-min talk outlining THF goals and objectives followed by 5 mins brief presentations from key members of above institutions that agree to sign an MOU with THF. This can be followed by actual sign in of MOU documents. Key personalities like Sujatha, Maalan and others may also be invited for this function so that they can be requested to help spread THF cause to larger public audience through press, radio, tv etc. I request Tamilnadu Suvadians to come forward to comment on the pros and cons of what is being proposed and more importantly help Kannan to realize these ideas if there is general consensus that these efforts are essential. one of those 2 cents worth loud thinking for the day :-)