Skip to content Skip to navigation

Brahmaputra Literary Festival ends today

The three day Brahmaputra Literary Festival will come to end today, where Assam Governor Banwari Lal Purohit is scheduled to grace the closing ceremony as the chief guest. The function starting at 3 pm in Srimanta Sankardev Kalakshetra will also be graced by Gauhati University vice-chancellor Dr Mridul Hazarika, eminent Italian author Carlo Pizzaati and Indian writer Narendra Kohli with few others.

Meanwhile, thousands joined and observed various sessions on different topics & genres of literature & cinema, conversations, book reading, interactions in six venues namely Tagore Hall, Pandita Ramabai Hall, Premchand Hall, Subramania Bharathi Hall, Nalinibala Devi Hall and Bezbarua Hall.

In fact, Sankardev Kalakshetra cultural complex in the city turns into a fabulous confluence of writers, intellectuals, cultural personalities, vibrant appreciators and enthusiast observers from various parts of the globe on the occasion of 1st Brahmaputra Lit-Fest.

Eminent authors including Randy Taguchi from Japan, Neal Hall from USA, 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 graced the venue.

Many prominent nationally acclaimed writers and cultural personalities like Asha Parekh, Shatrughan Sinha, Rakyesh Omprakash Mehra Damodar Mauzo, Subhash Kashyap, Makarand Paranjpe, Khalid Mohammed, Dipa Choudhuri, Manju Bora, Bhagirath Mishra, Amar Mitra, Binod Ghosal have participated in various sessions of the festival including few 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 etc contributed for various panel discussions.

Similarly, Utpal Borpujari, Nilim Kumar, Suparna Lahiri Baruah, Mirza Ali Baig, Prasanta Rajguru, Mrinal Talukdar, Arindam Barkataki, Samrat Chowdhury, Nanigopal Mahanta, Imran Hussain, Basab Roy, Sanjay Chakrabarty, Deviprasad Singha, Ratna Barali Talukdar, Atanu Bhattachrya, Geetali Borah etc joined in the cohesive talks.

The festival witnessed the gala opening on Saturday precluding all serious panel discussions on literature and related other creative activities. 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,” said Dr Rita Choudhury, director of NBT.

Author info

Nava Thakuria's picture

Senior journalist based in Guwahati.

Add new comment

Random Stories

Rail blockade near Guwahati

18 May 2015 - 7:18pm | AT News
Normal train services to and from Guwahati remained heavily disrupted when local residents in Khetri and Dimoria blocked the trains at Digaru raising an old demand on Monday. Hundreds of local...

Mobile theatre pioneer dead

22 Feb 2015 - 6:58pm | Inamul Islam
Assam mobile theatre pioneer Adya Sarma passes away on Sunday. He was 75. The end came at 12 noon at a local nursing home in Nalbari where he was admitted a few days back. As soon as the news of...

Deepjyoti disseminated fake news: Police

21 Jul 2020 - 10:54pm | AT News
Guwahati: The Guwahati police claimed to have arrested Deepjyoti Gogoi from Sivasagar charging him maligning the image of the government by sharing a fake page of display where CM Sarbananda Sonowal...

Baska farmers towards commercial horticulture

23 Sep 2009 - 2:44pm | Mowsam Hazarika
For the first time in the new district of Baska, an interactive workshop was organised under Horticulture Technology Mission on last 22nd September. Amidst profuse enthusiasm, about 200 farmers...

Other Contents by Author

The recently concluded by-polls for 48 legislative assembly constituencies in 14 States (along with two Parliamentary constituencies in Kerala and Maharashtra) divulged an important fact that no less than  41 assembly seats needed  the special elections as those were vacated by the respective legislators after they were elected to the lower house of Indian Parliament. The representatives of different political parties (irrespective of their ideologies or position in the governments) participated in the last general elections and succeeded to be  lawmakers in the 18th Lok Sabha. One may wonder how all these members of State legislative assemblies turned Parliamentarians...
Geneva based the Press Emblem Campaign (PEC), a global organization advocating for media safety and rights, has expressed deep concern over the ongoing violence against journalists in Pakistan. The latest victim, Janan Hussain (40), was killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa near the Afghan border on November 20, during an ambush in the Kurram area that claimed the lives of 42 Shiite Muslims. Hussain, a journalist with Channel 365 and a member of the Parachinar Press Club, is the 11th media worker killed in Pakistan this year. "Janan Hussain's murder marks the 129th journalist killed globally since January 1, highlighting the grim reality of impunity in such cases," said Blaise Lempen, President...
The Press Emblem Campaign (PEC) awarded its annual prize for the protection of journalists to Palestinian journalist Iyad Alasttal. This recognition comes amidst the unprecedented loss of over 150 Palestinian and Lebanese journalists since October 7, 2023, marking one of the highest tolls in such a short period in a conflict. The PEC dedicated the prize to the memory of these journalists who risk their lives daily. Iyad Alasttal, a journalist from Gaza, was forced to flee due to Israeli reprisals following the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. Alasttal, who launched the Gaza Stories project in 2019, has been chronicling life in Gaza and reporting for French and Western media outlets....
On the midnight of August 31, 2019, an extraordinary bureaucrat unveiled the contentious National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, amidst a large gathering of eager media personnel in Guwahati. Prateek Hajela, the then State NRC coordinator, not only explained various features of the NRC to the assembled reporters but also declared the supplementary list as the definitive one. Some television journalists, excited by the so-called "extraordinary work" of the technocrat-turned-IAS officer, went as far as to applaud Hajela as a superhero. However, the ground reality paints a different picture. The Assam NRC has never been endorsed—nor is it today—by the Registrar General of India (RGI...
It’s shocking to report that a number of Guwahati-based scribes and RTI (right to information) activists have been facing interrogation and even arrest by Assam chief minister’s special vigilance cell following the allegations of Sewali Devi Sharma, the prime accused in Rs 105 crore State council of educational research and training (SCERT) scam, as being blackmailers to her in different occasions. The arrestees include a female reporter (identified as Pujamoni Das alias Honey Kashyap, who reportedly took a large volume of money from Ms Sharma) along with a satellite news channel reporter named Bhaskarjoti Hazarika.  RTI activists namely Rabijit Gogoi (who pretended to be a...
Can we imagine a world of zero poverty, zero unemployment, and zero carbon emissions with a new approach in post-corona economics! Ask Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus and he will answer in the affirmative. The university professor turned revolutionary banker believes that the human race should not only dream about a safer world by reducing global warming, wealth concentration and unemployment, but also work in that direction with personal and collective capacities. In his latest book titled ‘A World of Three Zeros’, Prof Yunus proposes a new economic system focusing on every human being as an entrepreneur in the making. He believes that humans are not born to work only for...
Guwahati: Assam is all set to host first sustainable financial working group (SFWG) meeting and Youth 20 inception meeting as part of India's year-long G20 presidency, where it is meticulously chalked out various tour programs that would help in promoting the State’s rich biodiversity and socio-cultural heritage in international arena. The authorities have completed the preparation to welcome the foreign delegates to the State. Guwahati is adorned with digital wall painting, thematic gates, flags of G 20 countries, LED cut-outs, standees, hoarding, etc as part of branding and beautification. The government has also completed the arrangement for the visiting delegates to places of...
Guwahati: India observes National Press Day on 16 November with an aim to pay tributes to everyone who contributed to the growth of print media along with its mentor & watchdog the Press Council of India (PCI). Moreover, it’s also an occasion for the practicing media persons to introspect seriously over their noble profession where it has been heading in the post-Covid-19 pandemic era. Since its inception and functioning, the PCI continues to symbolize a free and responsible press in the largest democracy in the world. Among all press or media councils, functioning in various countries, the PCI is recognised as a unique entity that exercises authority over the media and also safeguards...
Participating in a debate on satellite television or digital channels needs some homeworks to make the deliberations short and clear. Unless you face an arrogant anchor and unruly participants, the experience in talk shows normally emerges as an intriguing one. It happened to me, as I had recently participated in a digital media discussion on the pertinent issue of National Register of Citizens  (NRC) in Assam, where the prime guest was none other than the immediate past State NRC coordinator Hitesh Dev Sarma. The talk show host Dikshit Sharma put the questions in a clever way so that the issue comes alive and my part was just to interpret Dev Sarma’s version for clarity to the valued...
Guwahati: It was an amazing experience to attend the foundation day of a 25 year old press club in central Assam on a lazy Sunday, where a number of senior citizens along with rural scribes and novice journalists were waiting to listen to my speech. It’s easier to address a journalist’s meet- where we can discuss many issues with liberties, but while the audience includes respected senior citizens and young people, it becomes a difficult task to speak to them together. First, the question that arises, how much should I highlight the eroding credibility of the mainstream media around India in general and Assam in particular and secondly what may be the role of social (alternate/digital)...