Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore (SN)
Mangalore, Feb 14: A meet of Kannada authors and publishers was held at the office of the deputy commissioner, Dakshina Kannada district here on Friday February 13.
The meeting was jointly organized by Kannada Book Authority and Dakshina Kannada district Sahitya Parishat.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Siddalingaiah, president, State Kannada Book Authority, said that the momentum on Kannada awareness movement will be kept alive in border region by distributing Kannada books in schools located state border.
As the initial step of the movement, free Kannada books will be distributed to 100 different Kannada schools of Kasargod district on Saturday February 14, while books will also be distributed to 60 Kannada schools located in Solapur district of Maharastra and the Tamil Nadu border villages on Tuesday February 24, he said.
Over 1,000 books were handed over to the deputy commissioner, in response to his demand for the establishment of a Kannada library in the office of the district collector, Kasargod. This has also encouraged the literary lovers and students hailing from places located in Karnataka border to read more books in Kannada, said Siddalingaiah.
The cash component of the ‘best publication’ award amount has been increased from Rs 50,000 to Rs one lac. Best 20 selected works of various authors have been printed in Braille script to facilitate the blind people to read them, he said.
Kannada authors, in association with different academies, must organize workshops. Apart from this, a decision about conducting a district level Books Mela will also be arrived at during the course of the meeting, said Siddalingaiah.
Litterateurs like Dr Vaman Nandavar, Shivaram Karkera, Sharada Bhat, M S Ibrahim, Dr Ismail and others participated in the meeting, discussing various problems encountered by them, with the president.
Prabhakar Sharma, headquarters assistant in the DC office and Pradeep Kumar Kalkura, president, Kannada Sahitya Parishat, Dakshina Kannada district were present.