Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Friday inaugurated the Chennai Literary Festival at the conference hall of Anna Centenary Library in the city.
HR & CE Minister P.K. Sekarbabu, School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi, Chennai Corporation Mayor Priya, Deputy Mayor Magesh Kumar, Textbook Society Chairman I. Leoni, Education Secretary Kakarla Usha, Writers Paul Zakaria, Bava Chelladurai among others were present on the occasion.
The Chennai Literary Festival will be held from today till January 8 at Anna Centenary Library in 4 halls namely creative hall, cultural hall, learning hall for college students and literary hall for children.
More than 100 writers and literary personalities will deliver lectures on various topics.
There will also be a variety of concerts and kid-focused art sessions in the evening.
Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi, Minister of School Education, and Youth Welfare and Sport Development Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin had inaugrated the pre-events of the Chennai Literary Festival for college students on January 4.
Several competitions and workshops were held for college students on January 4 and 5, before the inauguration of the three-day literary festival focusing both on school and college students, at the Anna Centenary Library.
The education department together with the Directorate of Public Libraries conducted events on literature and arts at 4-5 colleges in the city before kickstarting the festival. The
events included essay writing, slam poetry, literary debate, film appreciation, literary memes and literary quiz.
The department had planned to conduct four literary festivals, following the announcement made in the assembly to celebrate Tamil literature.
The festivals will be held under prominent Tamil Nadu rivers named Siruvani, Vaigai, Cauvery and Porunai. In November, the Porunai literature festival was held in Tirunelveli.
A similar festival is planned in Chennai too. The festival will have stalls with literary works for both college and school students.
Additionally, competitions for children and Chennai’s history in terms of books, videos and literature will be part of the festival. In his address, Stalin said language is the life of a race and listed out various Tamil welfare initiatives by the DMK governments in the past Stating that our Tamil race gave its life to protect the language, he said tthe Dravidian movement might be political, but it has always been one that has protected the language.
Some of the initiatives taken by the DMK government over the years included naming the state as Tamil Nadu, getting Classical Language status for Tamil, rechristening Madras as Chennai, promoting Tirukkural and installin a 133 ft high statue of Saint Poet Tiruvalluvar, who penned it, in Kanyakumari.
