Kalinga Literary Festival, one of the oldest and largest national festival held in India, has successfully completed one year with its digital venture that was begun during the covid pandemic.
It was on 17th May, 2020, Kalinga Lit Fest had announced its virtual platform- 'KLF Bhava Samvad'. It was a result of the KLF’s decision to continue the celebration of literature and spirit digitally while the country was under lockdown due to Covid 19 pandemic.
A year down the lane, KLF Bhava Samvad hosted 200-plus sessions with 500 speakers and over 15 million audience engagement. KLF Bhav Samvad’s sessions focus on literature, public policy, and thinking in multiculturalism, humanism and contemporary issues of society at large.
"With over 200 sessions we have come a long way. It is people's love for literature that made this happen," said Rashmi Ranjan Parida, founder-director of Kalinga Literary Festival, Mystic Kalinga Festival. KLF Bhava Samvad has collaborated with leading publishing houses like Penguin Random House, Westland, Harper Collins India, ROLI Books, Rajpal & Sons,Vani Prakashan, Rupa & Co., Niyogi Books and many more.
Eminent personalities from literature, business, culture etc like Amitav Ghosh, Gopal Krishna Gandhi, Dr Pratibha Roy, Mamta Kalia, Lord Meghnad Desai, Bibek Debroy, S Y Quraishi, Pt. Hari Prasad Chourasia, Geeta Shree, Prabhat Ranjan, Durjoy Dutta, Sandeep Bamzai, Swami Mukundanand, Sarah Joseph, Ghazala Wahab, Sandeep Agarwal, Amish Tripathi, Devdutt Pattanaik, Ram Madhav, Arundhati Subramaniam, Haldhar Naag, Pt Kunj Bihari Mishra, Rasheed Kidwai, Geeta Shree, TT Ram Mohan, Atul K Thakur, Shobha Akshar, Keshava Guha participated in the sessions. KLF also hosted 4 special sessions to give tribute to legendary writer Manoj Dash.
“The heart speaks and the mind listens, the eyes tell the stories and silence raises our consciousness. As we know that literature always reflects society and sometimes guides as well, we at KLF are going to connect with poets, philosophers and writers, to know how literature has captured this pandemic and how successful it has been in reflecting the contemporary and ongoing reality of life.” Said Mr Ashutosh Kumar Thakur Advisor & Curator of KLF.
The festival made another big announcement about the launch of 'Mystic India Festival'. MKF focuses on literary celebration on pan India basis which is soon to be commenced.
