Malayalam among India's Classical Languages, and the Linguistic Experts Committee that recommends the status

Background

The Government of India decided to create a new category of languages as Classical Languages on 12th October 2004, declaring Tamil as Classical Language and setting criteria for the status.
A Linguistic Experts Committee (LEC) was constituted by the Ministry of Culture under Sahitya Akademi in Nov 2004 to examine the proposed languages for the status of Classical Language.
The criteria were revised in Nov 2005 and Sanskrit was declared as Classical Language, with a date of notification of 25/11/2005.
The Government of India records the date of notification for Malayalam as a Classical Language as 08/08/2013, after Telugu and Kannada, both notified on 31/10/2008, and before Odia on 01/03/2014.
Centres for Excellence for studies in Classical Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Odia were established under the auspices of the Central Institute of Indian Languages in Mysuru.
Benefits extended to Classical Languages by the Ministry of Education include National Awards for Classical Languages, Chairs in Universities and Centres for promotion of Classical Languages.
The Linguistics Experts Committee under Sahitya Akademi later revised the criteria again, and the Union Cabinet approved Classical Language status for Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali.