Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday arrived in Chennai to attend the 56th annual convocation of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras.
Upon his arrival at the airport, PM Modi was greeted by Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit along with other dignitaries.
A large number of supporters gathered at the airport to welcome the Prime Minister, who also took a brief halt to address the gathering. The crowd erupted in loud cheer after Modi greeted them in Tamil, before switching to Hindi and making a short speech.
"Vanakkam! I am delighted to get back to Chennai. This is my first visit here after 2019 Lok Sabha elections. I have come here for the IIT-Madras event but I feel so happy to be welcomed by a mammoth gathering here," said Modi while interacting with his supporters.
Prime Minister Modi also outlined his recent speech at the UNGA where he had invoked three-Millenium old Tamil poet and philosopher Kaniyan Poongundranar and called Tamil as the oldest language of the world.
"When I was staying in America, I spoke in the Tamil language once and told everyone that this is one of the ancient languages. Even today, the Tamil language echoes in entire America. During my visit to America, I realized that the entire world has a lot of expectation from India. So, it becomes our responsibility to work for the welfare of our country and this work won't be done just by the government sitting in Delhi but it will be made possible by the help of 130 crore citizens of this country," he added.
Stressing on the need to abandon single-use plastic, PM Modi stated that he had never spoken about India becoming 'plastic-free', however, the aim is to get rid of the single-use plastic.
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PM Modi will later address the 56th annual convocation of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras here.
He will participate in the prize distribution ceremony of Singapore-India Hackathon and do a walkthrough of the exhibition on IIT-Madras research park start-ups here.