All-India poetess conference begins in Chandigarh

A three-day 17th All-India Poetess Conference (AIPC) commenced at Punjab Arts Council campus here on Thursday.

Over 350 poetesses from across India and 14 foreign countries, attired in their traditional dresses, took part in the conference.

Organised by the AIPC in collaboration with the Punjab Art Council, the conference was inaugurated by Punjab's Minister for Cultural Affairs and Tourism, Navjot Singh Sidhu.

According to a spokesperson of the conference, prominent poetesses in the conference include: Stream Lete from Shillong, Pooja Gupta from Nepal, Gurinder Gill from Malaysia, Veena Budki from Kashmir, Dr Supriya P and Dr C Radhamani from Kerala, Sunita Murti from Karnataka, Rana Meer from Dubai and Surjeet Kalki from Canada.

In his address, Sidhu said women occupy a prominent place in society and they are the "axis of purity", "goodness" and "gentleness" around which the well-being and progress of any society revolves.

Punjab Arts Council Chairman Surjit Patar said lingual harmony is the need of the hour as it is a perfect way to achieve synchronisation among the vastly different cultures existing in the country.

Lari Azad, AIPC founder, said that apart from Punjabi, poetesses of languages such as Kannada, Bangla, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Urdu, Hindi and Kashmiri are taking part in the conference.

--IANS

js/umer/dg