The 16th convocation of the Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University held at Ravindra Bharathi, on Wednesday, saw gold medals awarded to 30 M.Phil. and Ph.D. students, and 31 students of graduate, diploma and certificate programmes. The research works included social, contemporary, culture, fine arts, and a cross section of prose and poetry in literature. A total of 1,189 students across varied disciplines were awarded the degrees.
For gold medalist M. Anil Kumar, who received his Master of Philosophy degree, it is the music that he heard from a dappu (flat-faced drum) years ago, that drove him to delve deep into the life of Surya Bhagwanta Rao, the acclaimed dappu artist, who also went on to teach dappu for long at the Telugu University.
Like Kumar, it is the dance forms and mentions in Jnanpith Award recipient Viswanatha Satyanarayana’s ‘Veyi Padagalu’ for another postgraduate M. Sudhamala, that became the research point.
Journalism research bags most gold medals
Of the 30 gold medals awarded to M.Phil. and Ph.D. scholars, seven were bagged by researchers of journalism trends and perspectives. Five golds each were bagged by linguists and history-culture-archaeology scholars.
According to Vice-Chancellor Tangeda Kishan Rao, the number of admissions to the university in the current year was nearly twice in comparison to the recent past years. “More number of students from the rural side taking up these courses is also an index of social development,” he observed.
Chancellor’s love for Telugu
Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, also the university’s Chancellor, was the showstopper at the convocation. While the audience and the august council turned the eight-page booklet in confusion to follow her address, Ms. Soundararajan went on to read her own message, fully in Telugu.
The five-minute address was peppered with translated Tamil sayings, Mahakavi Subramania Bharati’s admiration of ‘Sundara Telugu’, and her promise to publish smaller and low-cost Telugu books for wider circulation.
“People with different mother tongues should also be taught Telugu. You are all like the flowers spreading the fragrance of Telugu. Let us all spread this beautiful language to the world,” she concluded. At the convocation, ‘Abhinava Satyabhama’ and renowned Andhra Natyam and Perini guru Sri Kala Krishna was awarded the university’s Degree of Doctor of Letters — D. Litt. (Honoris Causa).
