Bhubaneswar: Business journalist Tamal Bandopadhyay, Bollywood actress Divya Dutta and Sudha Murty, wife of Infosys founder Narayan Murty and former West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi were among others who received awards for their books on the inaugural day of Kalinga Literary Festival 2021 in the temple city of Bhubaneswar.
Padmashree Srinivas Udgata was awarded the Kalinga Literary Award and Arun Kamal was awarded the Kalinga Literary International Award.
Odisha Tourism Minister, Jyoti Prakash Panigrahi inaugurated the festival. His Excellency Mr Ram Prasad Subedhi, Nepal Embassy, Padma Vibhushan Dr SitakantaMohapatra, Padma Bhusan Shri RamakantaRath, graced in the inaugural ceremony.
Inaugurating the Kalinga Literary Festival, Odisha Tourism Minister, Jyoti Prakash Panigrahi said for the last eight years Kalinga Literary Festival has set a national benchmark in literary festivals. KLF is well known for its socially relevant themes and in a way compels all ‘creative’ people to think and articulate ‘the contemporary’.
Kalinga Literary Festival (KLF) has emerged as one of the leading literary platforms in India, attracting both experienced and young litterateurs. Bigger than ever before, the eighth edition of the festival will bring nationally and internationally acclaimed names on one platform to discuss, debate and explore commonalities in the diverse voices in literature, said Mr Rashmi Ranjan Parida, the founder-director of KLF.
Awards Galore
A total of 30 awards were given away to eminent authors and translators of repute by the organisers of the Kalinga Literary Festival on its eighth edition held here. The names were decided for the past two years since the festival could not be organised last year due to the pandemic.
Tamal Bandopadhyay was awarded best writer in the Economy category for his book “Pandemonium: The Great Indian Banking Tragedy”.
For the non-fiction category, Sandeep Bamzai’s book “Princestan: How Nehru, Patel and Mountbatten Made India” was selected among other two books in the same category.
For the Children’s literature section, Sudha Murty was selected for her book called “Grandparents’ Bag of Stories”.
Bollywood actress Divya Dutta was awarded as the Women Writer during the event.
Former West Bengal Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi was selected for his book on Mahatma Gandhi.
Rashid Kidwai’s book “Bharat Ke Pradhan Mantri” was selected for autobiography category.
Mr Gopalkrishna Gandhi said Odisha’s Gopabandhu Das has shown the way a fearless writer should behave as he had the courage to pen his thoughts staying inside a British prison. He said all the writers should follow his life story as a guide to become a fearless writer, the hallmark of a matured society.
