US Tamil activist dies

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 November 2004, 12:11 GMT]
Mr. Ramalingam Shanmugalingam (70), also known as 'AppuArchie', a San Diego, California based Tamil activist who campaigned for the Tamil cause with his writings died Sunday after suffering a heart attack. Mr Shanmugalingam transcreated Tamil poems in English and was a prolific writer and Internet activist for more than a decade.

Mr Shanmugalingam through his experimentation of Yarzhan Key for simplification of Tamil computing in 1995 contributed to render Tamil with Latin characters for Internet communication. He has also campaigned for the status of Tamil language as one of the worlds classical languages.

Mr Shanmugalingam is from Nallur, Jaffna and has been living in US for 22 years.

He served as an Engineer in a private organisation in Sri Lanka until 1972, and later served as Chief Engineer with the Ministry of Agriculture in Zambia for over 8 years.

He has recorded his experiences in his homeland in a 50 chapters of series of writings titled "Journey Down Memory Lane".

He has also released a book in India earlier last month.

He leaves behind his wife Susheela, a son and two daughters.

Funeral services will be held at Cypress View Mausoleum & Crematory, Imperial Ave, San Diego, on Thursday with a cremation ceremony 12.00 to 13.00 p.m.

External Links:

TamilNation:

Journey Down Memory Lane