The two-day Young Writers’ Festival concluded today at Temporary Academic Block, Central University of Jammu. It was organized by Sahitya Akademi in collaboration with Department of English, Central University of Jammu in which almost thirty writers from across the country participated. The event had five different sessions, dealing with short story reading and poetry sessions in Dogri, Kashmiri, Rajasthani, Urdu, Sanskrit, Punjabi, Hindi and English. Three sessions were held on 29^th November and other two sessions were held on 30^th November. The sessions were chaired by Mr. R.L. Shant, Mr. Lalit Magotra, Prof. Champa Sharma, Mr. Om Goswami and Mr. Pritpal Singh Betab respectively.

The first session on Thursday, 30^th November was chaired by Mr. Om Goswami, and the participants included Mr. Manoj Heer, Ms. Preeti Shenoy, Mr. Baljeet Sirvastava and Mr. Deep Singh. Ms. Preeti Shenoy read some excerpts from her latest book A Hundred Little Flames. She also shared her evolution as a writer and various aspects of writing she has taken on. The next writer in this session was Mr. Kamal Deep Singh, who read his Punjabi short-story “Maafinama” to the audience, which was applauded by all the people present in the auditorium. The second and final session of the day was chaired by Mr. Pritpal Singh Betab and the participants were Ms. Keerti Thakur, Mr. Sandeep Singh, Mr. Farooq Shaheen, Mr. Sandeep Kaur, Mr.Madan Gopal Ladha and Mr. Jitender Parwaz. They all recited poems in different languages, giving the audience a feeling of rich cultural and literary tradition of India. Finally, Prof. Govind Singh, Head Department of Hindi, Central University of Jammu concluded the event by presenting a report of the proceedings, and he spoke on the relevance of contemporary writings in regional languages. He also stressed upon the revival of Hindi language in the process of contemporary nation building.