Compiled by KHOO JIAN TENG, C.ARUNO and R. ARAVINTHAN
TAMIL education activists were left baffled after a government-recognised entity was left out of a meeting on Tamil education, Malaysia Nanban reported.
The Selangor government which recently announced its support for mother tongue language learning hosted the Tamil Education Conference 2025 recently.
During the event, the Malaysian Chinese Language Council (MCLC) chairman Datuk Eddie Heng was reportedly honoured with a special award for his services.
While activists welcomed MCLC and Heng’s contributions in promoting mother tongue education, they were, however, bewildered that the Malaysian Tamil Language Standardisation Council (MPBTM) had been apparently forgotten.
The council was formed in 2019 by the Federal Government.
MPBTM had no participation in the conference, leading to questions about its very existence and function.
The council was mooted and instituted to carry out research, publish books, translate Tamil literature to other languages and develop the language, roles similar to the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.
> Four people in a family in India suffocated to death after starting a log fire inside their house to stay warm, Makkal Osai reported.
Northern states in India are experiencing severe cold weather in December and most houses do not have heating.
The family of eight in Bihar apparently started a small fire in one of the rooms, closed all the doors and windows and went to sleep.
Neighbours who noticed that the house remained locked the next morning became concerned and checked on the family only to find all eight unconscious.
The victims were rushed to the hospital but four of them, including three children, were already dead from smoke inhalation.
The four remaining victims are undergoing intensive treatment.
(The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.)
