Tamil Nadu state govt gives bicycles to poor pupils

Compiled by BENJAMIN LEE, C. ARUNO and R. ARAVINTHAN

THE Tamil Nadu state government will spend 3.23 billion rupees (RM180mil) this year to provide free bicycles to poor students, Malaysia Nanban reported.

This is expected to help 635,947 students who come from communities viewed as backward or minority, among others.

Chief Minister M.K. Stalin kicked off the programme by handing over bicycles to 10 students during a ceremony in Chennai.

The project was originally announced by the previous ADMK government in December 2020.

The new DMK government has continued with the programme but it changed the colour of the bicycle to blue.

> The daily also reported that an Ipoh-based amateur film-maker ARK Kaniarasu will begin production of the movie Karaiyaan (Termite) with a team of local youngsters. To mark the start of the film production, special prayers were held at a temple in Buntong, Ipoh.

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.