Hyderabad Literary Festival speaks to women activists in pre-event program

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad Literary Festival (HLF) is holding numerous unique sessions for the public in its twelfth edition.

In a pre-event program the founder of Our Sacred Space Nayantara Nanda Kumar, held a discussion with four dynamic women NGO founders whose work supports the nation’s most vulnerable citizens.

On January 15, four social workers —rural farmers activist Padma Koppula, founder of Network of International Legal activists Mamatha Achanta, co-founder of Kriti social initiatives Himani Gupta, and founder of Kriti Social Initiatives, and activist Arpana Krishnan, spoke about their experiences working with the country’s marginalised communities in a session called Voices of independence.

The ladies discussed a variety of topics throughout the session, which is also accessible on Hyderabad Literary Festival’s YouTube account for people to watch later, ranging from drought, personal sorrow, and communal suffering to new ideas and solutions.

Hyderabad Literary festival to be held virtually from Jan 28

Hyderabad Literary Festival is scheduled to be held virtually from January 28 to 30 with the United Kingdom (UK) as a guest nation this year.

Announcing the date of the festival, Jayesh Ranjan IAS, Chairman of Hyderabad Literary festival told, “We hoped that it would be held like a physical event but unfortunately due to the present COVID-19 conditions, we are doing it digitally. But having a digital format also has its own advantage.”

Sharing the experience or previous digital Literary festival, he said, “We had seen more number of people coming online and participating in sessions not only from Hyderabad but from other states also. It allows the flexibility of people from anywhere to participate and even watch it later.”

Nevertheless, he hopes to get back to physical format because of the real joy of a live literary author listening to his thoughts, asking questions, interacting with him outside the session.
Jayesh informed that the festival team is partnering with the United Kingdom and lots of British authors will be participating in the festival this year.

“Every year, we give encouragement to the Indian language and showcase good work, This year, we have the Punjabi language. So, we expect Hyderabad literary festival gets good patronage. I feel very optimistic to run this tradition for the last unbroken sequence of 12 years and many many more years to go forward,” he added.

Vijay Kumar, Director HLF informed about the process of participating in workshops during the festival.
“We also have workshops which will be done by registration and will be conducted on zoom, zoom link will be sent to them upon registration.

The guest nation for 2022 in the UK. We have UK based writer who will be participating. Also, we have British Council that will be partnering with us,” the director said.

Dr Kinnera Murthy, Strategic consultant said that the country has around five top festivals, out of which, Hyderabad literary festival is the one.