Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday praised Tamil Nadu as a special place and lauded the Tamil language as eternal and its culture as global. 

In his address after inaugurating new completed projects and laying foundation stone for fresh schemes in various sectors, including housing, Modi quoted a popular verse of nationalist poet Subramania Bharathi and said in every field someone from Tamil Nadu was excelling.

Recently, Modi said he had hosted the Indian Deaflympics contingent at his residence. The PM said this time it was India's best performance in the tournament. “Do you know out of the 16 medals we have won, a youngster from Tamil Nadu had a role in 6 of those medals and this is among the best contribution to the team.” 

He referred to the Subramania Bharathi chair at the Banaras Hindu University in his Varanasi constituency and the full funding to the Central Tamil Classical Institute by the Centre.

Underscoring the National Education Policy, he said technical and medical courses can be pursued in local languages and youngsters from Tamil Nadu could benefit from this.       

Earlier, Modi and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Thursday took apparent potshots at each other, even as the  TRS supremo gave a miss to the PM for the second time in a year during an official visit to his State.

While Modi lashed out at family politics saying “parivaarvadi” is democracy’s “greatest enemy,” KCR, who flew to Bengaluru to meet former PM HD Deve Gowda, said despite “bhaashanbaazi” (rhetoric), industries were closing down, the nation’s GDP was crashing and the rupee was falling drastically compared to the US dollar and said all sections of the society were suffering.

In Chennai, Modi said India is providing all possible support to the economic crisis-hit Sri Lanka including financial, fuel, food, medicine and other essential items and recalled that he was the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Jaffna earlier.

Pointing to the new schemes, including those launched and foundation stone for new projects, he said the Bengaluru-Chennai Expressway would connect two key centres of economic growth.

Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi, Chief Minister M K Stalin and Union Minister L Murugan among others participated in the event, held coinciding with the PM's maiden visit to Tamil Nadu after the DMK came to power last year.