Ethnic groups of Tamil Nadu Ethnic groups of Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu is one of the 29 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai (formerly known as Madras). Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the States of Puducherry, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. It is the eleventh largest state in India and the seventh most-populous state. As of 2001 census, Tamil is spoken as the first language by 88.43% of the population followed by Telugu by 5.65 percent, Kannada by 2.68 percent, Urdu by 1.51 per cent, Hindi by 0.64 percent, Malayalam by
History of Tamil Nadu in the Indian Union, Tamil Nadu was the seventh largest economy in 2005 among the states of India. The growing demands for skilled labour has caused increased number of educational institutions in Tamil Nadu. The widespread application of caste based affirmative action caused the state to have 69% of all educational and employment vacancies to be reserved to the backward castes. Such caste-based reservations have huge public support in Tamil Nadu, with no popular protests organised against its implementation. The politics of Tamil Nadu have gone through three distinct phases since independence. The domination of the Congress Party after 1947