Around 100 celebrities from the world of literature, cinema, media and politics assembled in the temple city of Bhubaneswar in Odisha to deliberate on the theme of ‘Literature and Democracy’ at the Kalinga Literature Festival (KLF) held on 18 and 19 June. This festival has emerged as the biggest literary platform in Eastern India attracting both experienced and young litterateurs. Bigger than ever before, the third edition of the festival brought nationally and internationally acclaimed names to one platform to discuss, debate and explore commonalities in the diverse voices in literature and democracy.
The festival was inaugurated by Union Ministers led by Dharmendra Pradhan, Mahesh Sharma and Babul Supriyo and Odisha government minister Debi Prasad Mishra. Subramanian Swamy, Rajya Sabha MP was the keynote speaker. The two-day festival covered several dimensions of the interconnections between literature and democracy. The key sessions were on topics like dialogue, development and democratic spirit in literature, a literary journey of Kalinga, governance in Odia language, youth, women, media, sports, folk and regional literature. Fifteen new books were launched during the two-day festival.
Eminent personalities like Amiya Bhusan Tripathi, Amrendra Khatua, Anil Dey, Anustup Nayak, Arif Mohd. Khan, Arun Rath, Arundhati Subramaniam, Asit Mohanty, Baishnab Parida, Bhabani Mohanty, Bibhuti Pattnaik, Bijaya Kumar Rath, Charudutta Panigrahi, Chittaranjan Jena, Deba Prasad Dash, Debasis Panigrahi, Debi Prasanna Pattanayak, Debajani Mohanty Rastogi, Dinanath Pathy, Durga Panda, Gourhari Das, Haldhar Nag, Haraprasad Dash, Jayanta Mohapatra, JP Dash, Kedar Mishra, Mahesh Sahoo, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Mridula Garg, Mrinal Chaterjee, Nandini Sahoo, Paramita Satapathy, Piyush Mishra, Pooja Bhatt, Praduymna Satpathy, Pratibha Ray, Purushottam Agrawal, Rahul Pandita, Rajendra P Gupta, Ramakanta Rath, Sachidananda Mohanty, Sameer, Sangram Lahiry, Sankar Parida, Santosh Mohanty, Saroj Mishra, Satyabrata Rout, Satyanand Nirupam, Seema Biswas, Sitakanta Mohapatra, Subhransu Panda, Sujit Mohapatra, TK Chand, Uma Basudev, Vineet Kumar and Yash Pattnaik participated in the festival.
According to Kamala Kanta Dash, convener of KLF, “Indian literature is rich in diversity of color and human experiences. KLF has also been a platform to explore Odisha’s rich variety of literature and human experience.” Announcing the festival, founder Rashmi Ranjan Parida said, “KLF 2016 promises to be the biggest platform and will be a blend of Odia literature and its interconnection with national and global literature.” Chief convener Sangram Dhar said, “We are happy that in three years KLF has gone global. We have been able to attract diverse voices from all over India.”
