Desha Bashalandu Telugu lessa (out of all Indian languages, Telugu is the best),  said  emperor of South India, Srikrishna Devaraya ages ago. Despite being a Kannadiga, Srikrishna Devaraya employed eight Telugu poets (Astadigajas) in his empire.

While kings and emperors hailed Telugu language and literature, it's unfortunate that Telugu speaking people are tending to ignore the classical language. Be it due to the influence of western culture or in order to tag themselves as modernized people, many people often use too many English words when they speak Telugu.

This trend seems to be fast catching up with Telugu news channels too as usage of English has been more, which is often irking language lovers. Recent one to join the list of language admirers to take on vernacular news channels was lyricist Chandra Bose. He expressed his displeasure over Telugu news channels using too many English words in the place of Telugu. Chandra Bose has even said that it was the responsibility of the media to preserve and promote Telugu language. One has to wait and watch whether some news channels would now at least ask its anchors to stop uttering words such as 'short break,' etc.

(AW Phani)