Bhubaneswar: Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan today inaugurated the sixth edition of the two-day Odisha Literary Festival organised by The New Indian Express in Bhubaneswar in presence of senior journalists Prabhu Chawla, Shampa Dhar-Kamath and Srimoy Kar.
Pradhan stated, “Platforms such as the Odisha Literary Festival should promote the glorious past of the Odia community. Due to lack of proper documentation, the first war of independence, which was fought in Odisha, has lost into oblivion. Therefore, efforts should be made to bring those facts to fore.”
Chawla, editorial director of the New Indian Express said, "The purpose behind organising the festival is to make Odisha a literary destination and to some extent we have succeeded in achieving that goal."
After the opening keynote address by Pradhan, senior Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh and Manish Tewari along with Anirban Ganguly and Shankar Aiyar deliberated on the topic "Is Political Literature a new Indian Obsession?"
Besides, story-teller Neelesh Misra enthralled the gathering by narrating three stories of his own in the final event on the first day of the literary festival.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is scheduled to deliver the closing keynote address tomorrow.
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