Skip to content Skip to navigation

Thousands throng Brahmaputra Literary Festival

By Nava Thakuria |

Creative writers, journalists, filmmakers, vivid appreciators, enthusiast observers from various parts of the globe now gather at Brahmaputra Literary Festival in the far eastern part of India. First of its kinds in the alienated region of the country, the festival witnessed the gala opening on Saturday precluding all serious panel discussions on literature and related other creative activities.

Eminent authors including Randy Taguchi from Japan, Neal Hall from USA, Carlo Pizaati, Giampaolo Simi & Alessandra Bertini from Italy, Francois Gautier & Nicolos Idier from France, Carlos Penalver from Spain, Subramani from Fiji, Dhunpal Raj Heeraman & Ramdeo Dhorundhur from Mauritius, Selina Hussain & Shaheen Akhtar from Bangladesh, Rajiva Wijesinha from Sri Lanka, Raj Heeramun, Ramdev Dhoorandhar & Niranjan Kunwar from Nepal, Yugyen Tshering from Bhutan have already graced Srimanta Sankardev Kalakshetra, the venue of the festival.

Many prominent Indian writers and cultural personalities like Asha Parekh, Shatrughan Sinha, Rakyesh Omprakash Mehra Damodar Mauzo, Subhash Kashyap, Makarand Paranjpe, Narendra Kohli, Khalid Mohammed, Dipa Choudhuri are scheduled to participate in various sessions of the festival including open interaction with the audience.

Some famed north-eastern creative personalities and journalists including Sanjoy Hazarika, Arup Kumar Dutta, Jahnavi Barua, Mamang Dai, Pradip Phanjoubam, Monalisa Chankija, Dhruba Hazarika, Yeshe Dorjee Thongchi, Leena Sarma, Jnan Pujari, Phanindra Kumar Debachoudhury, Kula Saikia, Rami Chhabra, Vimala Morthala, Aniz Uz Zaman, Monikuntala Bhattacharjya, Dileep Chandan along with Utpal Borpujari, Nilim Kumar, Suparna Lahiri Baruah, Mirza Ali Baig, Prasanta Rajguru, Mrinal Talukdar, Arindam Barkataki, Samrat Chowdhury, Nanigopal Mahanta, Imran Hussain, Ratna Barali Talukdar, Atanu Bhattachrya, Geetali Borah etc arrived at the venue for cohesive participation.

With this three-day fiesta, jointly organised by the National Book Trust India (under HRD ministry) and Publication Board Assam (under Assam’s education ministry), the city has emerged as an important venue of literary festivals in the country. With brain storming panel discussions, book releases & readings, cultural events including screenings of films based on literary pieces etc, the festival is expected to enrich the literary prospect of the region to many extend. Inaugurating the festival, the Union human resources development minister Prakash Javadekar appealed to the litterateur and authors to contribute for the mission to build a culturally sound society through their literary pieces reflecting the truth. Once a journalist, Javadekar also assured the government's support in ensuring the freedom of thought & expressions.

Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal, State education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, celebrated authors Randy Taguchi, Mamang Dai and Damodar Mauzo, NBT chairman Baldeo Bhai Sharma & director Rita Choudhury also addressed the gathering under the winter sky. Earlier a spectacular literary carnival led the participants to the festival venue in the southern part of the pre-historic city.

Author info

Nava Thakuria's picture

Senior journalist based in Guwahati.
  • 9858 reads

Add new comment

Other Contents by Author

Nepal goes for much watched polls this Thursday

Landlocked Himalayan nation Nepal prepares for its ninth national election  on 5 March, which was necessitated with the collapse of its government in Kathmandu during September last year following an anti-corruption mass uprising, which was initiated by the young people and resulted in the killing of dozens of agitators and injuring hundreds other. The south Asian country of around 30.55 million people, sandwiched between two giants India and Tibet/China, has readied all necessary arrangements for the single day polling through ballot papers under the protection of  nearly 3,50,000 security personnel (with additional armed forces kept ready for an unwanted emergency situation...

Will Zubeen Garg dominate Assam 2026 assembly election issues !

Even all political parties, not to speak of millions of fans and well-wishers of Assam’s revered cultural icon  Zubeen Garg, continue preaching for sparing the maverick singer’s name in doing politics, his mysterious death last year in a foreign land may dominate the electoral politics in the forthcoming legislative polls. Indications surface that Assam assembly elections (scheduled for March-April 2026 along with West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry) will observe a high voltage campaigning on  Zubeen’s unexplained demise in Singapore on 19 September 2025 and subsequent investigation and judicial processes. Even after five months of his final departure, Zubeen continues...

Can BNP’s Tarique Rahman regime in Dhaka turn friendly to India !

As Bangladesh has constituted a new government under the leadership of  Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) after a largely fair & peaceful national election on 12 February 2026, the people of eastern India (the region virtually embraces the poverty stricken country except a few kilometers in Myanmar and the Bay of Bengal)  hope for a progressive regime in Dhaka enjoying political stability and pursuing economic developments to over 170 million people in the south Asian nation. The Muslim majority country continues to grow as a headache for the north-eastern states, more precisely Assam, for at least two  reasons namely unabated influx of migrants and regional security...

Polling begins in Bangladesh for 13th Jatiya Sansad election

Amid high security arrangements across the country, polling begins this morning at 7:30 am for the highly projected 13th Jatiya Sansad election in Bangladesh, where over 2000 candidates representing 50 political parties along with many independent contestants are in the fray. The Muslim majority nation has over  12.77 crore registered voters including 6.27 crore women and 1,232 third-genders, who are voting for electing   299 representatives (out of 300 seats in the national assembly). Over 42,000 polling centres will facilitate the electorates to exercise their franchise (through  ballots in person) till 4:30 pm (on 12 February 2026). The election will be conducted...

Bangladesh election, media’s projection, safety, etc

As Bangladesh heads for 13th Parliamentary election and  the referendum on  July National Charter simultaneously on Thursday (12 February 2026), the interim government chief Professor Muhammad Yunus urged all participating candidates to rise above personal and party interests to prioritize greater interest of the Muslim majority nation regardless of the poll-outcomes. Addressing the nation of over 170 million people ahead of the much watched electoral exercises, Nobel peace laureate  Dr Yunus commented that victory as well as defeat is an integral part of democracy and hence after the election, they should dedicate themselves to build a new, just, democratic, and inclusive...

Press Council without Chairperson, incomplete 15th council, etc

Is it possible to have a quasi-judicial body like the Press Council of India to survive for weeks without its chairperson? Should the largest democracy on Earth put such an example where its government recognized autonomous media watchdog faces an existential crisis as the 15th council of PCI still devoid of a functioning head and 13 seats? How come a press council runs its business without filling these 13 seats, meant for millions of media professionals, for more than a year now, whereas the term of a council is limited to three years only? Many such pertinent questions  emerge among media professionals in the   south Asian nation, as the regular three-year term (as well as...

Unceremonious departure of a popular Assamese weekly

Amid an existential crisis in the Guwahati-based Assam Tribune group of newspapers, which worsened after the Covid-19 pandemic, a popular Assamese weekly newspaper lost its publication in the latter part of 2025. Asom Bani, once a mainstream weekly for Assamese readers for decades, stopped hitting the stands from September last year, as the management lost interest in continuing its printing every Friday. Even though the seven-decade-old Assamese-language weekly was lost from the media market, the management did not make any statement about Asom Bani’s fate. Prior to its departure, the weekly was merged with Dainik Asom, an acclaimed Assamese daily from the prestigious media house, as its...

Why not Hasina tendering an apology to Hindus!

Bangladesh, which recently witnessed turmoil following the demise of a young radical leader Sharif Osman Bin Hadi amid anti-India rhetoric, now gradually returns to normalcy, as the south Asian nation also prepares for its next general election scheduled  for 12 February 2026. The highly sought after polls, as the sitting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina faced an overthrow in the backdrop of a student-led mass uprising in July-August 2024, however misses the participation of Hasina’s party Awami League, which used to rule the Muslim majority country of 170 million people for several years. The ousted premier along with thousands of  her party men continue to stay in neighbouring...

India’s 15th Press Council without journo-members !

It may be amazing but true, that the largest democracy on Earth continues waiting for a fully functioning government-sponsored media watchdog for more than a year now. Press Council of India (PCI), a quasi-judicial body, which was initiated to safeguard and nurture the freedom of press in the country, remains almost a non-functioning entity as the term of PCI’s 14th council  expired on 5 October 2024. Since then various initiatives to constitute the statutory 15th council to carry forward its prescribed activities confronted different hurdles. Currently the PCI has its chairperson and secretary along with only five members representing Rajya Sabha, University Grants Commission, Bar...

When Justice-for-Zubeen campaign gains momentum

An initial sadness and grief following the unforeseen death of Assam’s cultural icon in Singapore at only 53 have slowly turned into outrages with a sole demand for justice to  Zubeen Garg, as millions of his fans and admirers got convinced that something wrong had happened to their prince of melody during an unplanned sea-yacht outing in the southeast Asian nation. The heart-breaking news that brought the India’s north-eastern State with  3.3 million people to a standstill turning its capital city into a sea of humans weeping, sobbing, crying and exclaiming why Zubeen was put to die in the islands nation, thousands kilometer away from his motherland, on 19 September 2025. The...