 Chennaionline's new site for Tamil songs
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 Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi on August 31 night launched chennaionline.com's new, exclusive website (tamil-songs.co.in) for Tamil songs including film, Carnatic and devotional, ranging from 1920 to 2006 providing for digital downloads in legal format.
The Chief Minister and other celebrities lauded chennaionline.com's new initiative as a significant contribution to preserve and foster Tamil music, and said this was a historic occasion.
Among those who took part in the function at Image Academy auditorium were Union Minister of State for Statistics and Programme Implementation (Independent Charge) G K Vasan, film producer M Saravanan, poet Vairamuthu, music director M S Viswanathan, Carnatic vocalist and president of South India Music Companies Association (SIMCA), Sudha Ragunathan, S Thirunavukkarasar, MP, actors Bhagyaraj, Vivek and Prashant, music director Bharadwaj, playback singer P Unnikrishnan, CITU national secretary A K Padmanabhan and managing director of Srikrishna Sweets, M
Murali.
 Karunanidhi said the attempt to identify the songs for over 80 years in various categories and include them in an exhaustive database was itself a laborious and exemplary task. On top of it, Chennaionline, through this new website, had provided options to download the songs in audio or video formats, besides downloads of lyrics and purchase of CDs which would be delivered worldwide through courier.
This way, Tamils all over the world could listen to Tamil songs and also download them on to their own CDs.
He pointed out that at one point of time singers were reluctant to sing Tamil songs at music programmes. The situation had improved now but still not enough Tamil songs were being sung. They were being rendered in the Thukkada section which was regrettable, he added.
 Union Minister of State G K Vasan lauded Chennaionline's initiative and said this would serve Tamils all over the world who wanted access to such legendary Tamil songs in all formats. Chennaionline was playing a vital role in providing them music through the Internet in legal formats and this scheme deserved all encouragement, he added.
Lyricist Vairamuthu said Chennaionline had taken up a massive task of preserving and digitising the songs which would be available to successive generations of music and Tamil lovers.
This was a monumental task and he congratulated the Chennaionline team led by its managing director L Ravichandran, its associate editor R Chitra and chief of news bureau, R Rangaraj, for undertaking this historic mission in the service of Tamil language and culture.
S Thirunavukkarasar, MP, said Chennaionline's project of providing legal downloads of audio, video and lyrics of Tamil songs for seven to eight decades was a mission worthy of congratulation from Tamils all over the world. Though they were physically cut off from Tamil Nadu, the overseas Tamils could now access Tamil songs through Chennaionline's new website,
tamil-songs.co.in, he pointed out.
 Sudha Ragunathan said Chennaionline's pioneering effort would help fight piracy in the field of music and urged the Chief Minister to take steps to put down audio piracy. She also urged the government to reduce
sales tax on sale of audio cassettes and CDs to help the industry which was struggling.
Among those who participated in the function and congratulated Chennaionline were M Saravanan, actors Bhagyaraj, Vivek and Prashant, K Pandiarajan, managing director, Ma Foi Management Consultants Ltd., music director Bharadwaj and playback singer P Unnikrishnan, CITU national secretary A K Padmanabhan, and M Murali, MD, Sri Krishna Sweets.
Chennaionline's MD L Ravichandran and chief of bureau R Rangaraj welcomed the gathering and explained the salient features of the new site.
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R Rangaraj
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