AUGUST 19, 2002 - Encouraged by the response to its weekly bilingual page, the Tamil Murasu today (Aug 19, 2002) launched its daily Indian news segment in English and Tamil to encourage the "not-so-confident'' Indian readers to pick up the language.

The Tamil-language daily, which is published by The Singapore Press Holdings Limited (SPH), said the aim is to encourage those who are not very fluent in Tamil to try out in English first and move on to Tamil later.

Apart from news from India, the new segment also includes local Indian community news.

But the stories will take a different slant in the English and Tamil languages to ensure continued reader interest, said Tamil Murasu editor Dr Chitra Rajaram.

The new segment follows the successful revamp in March last year of a weekly bilingual page, which features children's stories and amusing anedotes in English and Tamil.

This page, which has a popular following, will continue to run every Monday as part of the Manavar Murasu students' educational supplement.

Dr Chitra said response from readers to its new bilingual page has been positive.

"This new bilingual page will certainly appeal to all Indians from the various dialect groups in Singapore. It is our desire that through this effort, Tamil Murasu will indeed be the Voice of Indian community in Singapore,'' she said.

The daily circulation of Tamil Murasu is about 10,000 and its Sunday circulation is over 14,000.

Issued by Singapore Press Holdings Limited.

For more information, please contact:-

Irene Ngoo
Asst Vice President
Corporate Relations
Tel: 6319 1216
Email: ingoo@sph.com.sg

Main board listed Singapore Press Holdings Limited is the leading news and information provider, offering quality content for print, Internet, TV and radio. It is licensed to publish 11 newspapers in the four official languages and six lifestyle periodicals. Everyday, SPH newspapers reach 2.68 million individuals or 89 percent of persons above 15 years old in Singapore while online publication of its six main dailies enjoy some 120 million pageviews a month. SPH has ventured into the broadcast medium and operates two popular free-to-air TV channels, Channel U in Chinese and Channel i in English.