Kannadasan

Kannadasan (24 June 1927 – 17 October 1981) was a Tamil poet and lyricist, heralded as one of the greatest and most important writers in the Tamil language. Frequently called Kaviarasu (King of Poets), Kannadasan was most familiar for his song lyrics in Tamil films and contributed around 5000 lyrics apart from 6000 poems and 232 books, including novels, epics, plays, essays, his most popular being the 10-part religious essay on Hinduism, Arthamulla Indhumatham (Meaningful Hindu Religion). He won the Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel Cheraman Kadali in the year 1980 and was the first to receive the National Film Award for Best Lyrics, given in 1969 for the film Kuzhanthaikkaga.

Kannadasan worked in Thiraioli, a cine magazine run by 'Papa' Rama.Thiyagarajan in Rayavaram. Pudukkottai Distt and in Chennai. He also worked for "Thirumagal" magazine in Ramachandrapuram, Pudukkottai Distt. M. Karunanidhi conferred the title Kavingar to Kannadasan in a public meeting held at Pollachi in 1949.

T. M. Soundararajan

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Thoguluva Meenatchi Iyengar Soundararajan (24 March 1922 – 25 May 2013), popularly known as TMS, was a playback singer in Kollywood for over six decades. He gave his voice to actors and thespians in the South Indian film industry such as M. G. Ramachandran, Sivaji Ganesan, N. T. Rama Rao, Gemini Ganesan, S. S. Rajendran, Jaishankar, Ravichandar,AVM Rajan,Muthuraman,Nagesh,Rajkumar and A. Nageswara Rao. He also gave his voice to many new generation actors like Kamalahasan, Rajanikanth, Vijayakanth, Satyaraj, Rajesh, Prabhu, Vijaya Kumar and many more. He has sung over 20,000 film songs from more than 5,000 films. He has sung over 3,000 devotional, classical songs. He had also given classical concerts since 1945. In a career spanning over 6 decades he has recorded film songs in eleven languages including, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam and other Indian languages. He also composed music for several of the ever green devotional songs that was recorded.He was the music director for the film "Bala Parikshai". His peak period as a male playback singer in the South Indian film industry was from 1955 to 1985. Soundarajan died on 25 May 2013 at his residence in Mandaveli, Chennai due to illness. He was 91 years old at the time of his death.

P. Susheela

Pulapaka Susheela (తెలుగు : పులపాక సుశీల), (Kannada : ಪಿ. ಸುಶೀಲಾ) popularly known as P. Susheela, is an Indian playback singer associated with the South Indian cinema for over six decades. She is the recipient of five National Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer and numerous state awards. Susheela is widely acclaimed as a singer who defined feminism in South Indian Cinema and is well known for her mellifluous vocal performances for 40,000 film songs across South Indian languages. The song and "Paal Polave" from "Uyarndha Manidhan" remain popular today in Tamil Nadu. At the 16th National Film Awards, it won the National Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer for P. Susheela, making it the first Tamil film to win a National Award under that category.

She was recommended for “Bharat Ratna”, the country’s highest civilian award in the year 2013 by the Governor of Tamil Nadu. Hailed as "Lata of the South", "Melody Queen", "Nightingale of the South, "Gana Kokila", "Gana Saraswathi", she is also considered one of the rich voiced singers whose pronunciation of the syllables to be more clear and precise in any of the languages she sang. In a career spanning more than six decades, she has recorded numerous songs in various Indian languages including Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Hindi, Bengali, Oriya, Sanskrit, Tulu, Badaga. She has also sung for Sinhalese films. Her mother tongue is Telugu. She can speak Tamil, Kannada and Hindi languages .Susheela is the female singer in Kannada who recorded highest number of songs, above 5000.

Dravida Nadu

Dravida Nadu, also known as Dravidistan or Dravidadesa, was the name of a proposed sovereign state demanded by Justice Party led by E. V. Ramasamy and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) led by C. N. Annadurai for the speakers of the Dravidian languages in South Asia.

Initially, the demand of Dravida Nadu proponents was limited to Tamil-speaking region, but later, it was expanded to include other Indian states with Dravidian speakers in majority (i.e. Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka).) Some of the proponents also included parts of Ceylon (Sri Lanka),Orissa and Maharashtra. Other names for the proposed sovereign state included "South India", "Deccan Federation" and "Dakshinapath".

The movement for Dravida Nadu was at its height from the 1940s to 1960s, but due to fears of Tamil hegemony, it failed to find any support outside Tamil Nadu. The States Reorganisation Act 1956, which created linguistic States, weakened the demand further. In 1960, the DMK leaders decided to delete the demand of Dravida Nadu from the party programme at a meeting held in absence of Annadurai. In 1963, the Government of India led by Jawaharlal Nehru, declared secessionism as an illegal act. Subsequently, Annadurai abandoned the claim for Dravida Nadu – now geographically limited to modern Tamil Nadu – completely in 1963.