Vanniyar Charities

Vanniyar Charities:

The Vanniyars may be linked in tradition to the vanni tree (prosopis spicigera), a holy tree in Hindu tradition.Kulasekhara,one of the early travancore kings,and one of the most renowned alwars reverenced by the srivaishnava community belongs to them.Vanniyars celebrate his anniversary in Parthasarathy temple Chennai even now.The Vanniyars have the right to present the most important camphor offering of the Mylapore Kapaleeswarar Temple.The Ekambaranathar Temple at Kanchipuram built by them.Likewise the Chidambaram Nataraja Temple is founded by Swetavarman,a Pallava king.

Ramadoss lays stone for Vanniyar trust varsity

The foundation stone for a deemed university, under the aegis of the Vanniar Educational Trust, at Konerikuppam, near Tindivanam. S. Ramadoss, founder leader of the Pattali Makkal Katchi and managing trustee, said the university would be a centre of excellence, offering medicine, engineering, and computer application courses, besides coaching for IAS, IPS and other vocational examinations for students of the community. The university, coming up on 100 acres, would be inaugurated the same day next year. The university would impart free education through "hundi collection." Every child in the community would be asked to save in a hundi Re. 1 a day or Rs. 100 a year and the salaried employees Rs. 100 a month and to make over this money to the trust annually. R. Anbumani, son of Dr. Ramadoss and president of the Trust, said that to start with 3,000 candidates would be given job-oriented training and in the next couple of years, the number might touch 10,000 a year. The Trust consisted of R. Govindasamy, MLA, P. Sundararajan, G.K. Mani, MLA and PMK president; J. Guru, MLA and State president of the Vanniyar Sangam, and S. Tamilarasan. The DMK president, M. Karunanidhi, in a message, expressed his happiness over the launch of the project. He said education was once considered the prerogative of certain privileged classes but now even the oppressed community could have easy access to education. The participants in the function included Durai Murugan and Veerapandi S. Arumugham, DMK leaders; Tindivanam K. Ramamurthy, former president of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee and Ginjee N. Ramachandran, former Union Minister.

Ramadoss urges Vanniyars to set up multispeciality centres

Medical professionals belonging to the Vanniya community should come together and start multispeciality centres, the Pattali Makkal Katchi founder, S. Ramadoss, said on Sunday. Noting that the strength of doctors from the community had been growing, Dr. Ramadoss said, "instead of working independently, the doctors should work together and establish multi-speciality centres for the welfare of people. They should also carve out a niche for themselves in each speciality." Radiotherapy, orthopaedics, paediatric surgery and cardio thoracic surgery, which have immense opportunities should be tapped by students. Dr. Ramadoss said the Vanniya Education Trust, headed by him, decided to set up a medical institution that would seek the status of a deemed university. For this purpose, a complex was being built over 150 acres near Tindivanam. The Union Health Minister, R. Anbumani, said the Centre had drawn up a programme to reduce the rate of pregnancy death, which was now very high. Efforts were on to update the curriculum for students of medicine and the revised one would be ready in a year or two. He emphasised the importance of continuing medical education for practising professionals, whether they belonged to allopathic or Indian traditional systems. A. Rajasekaran, chairman, National Board of Examinations, said students of medicine should make use of internship so that they gained a sound basis in practical knowledge. B. Palaniappan, a veteran specialist in gynaecology, and R. Surendran, Head of the Gastroenterology Department at the Stanley Medical College, stressed the importance of personality development and lateral thinking on the part of the students.