Chandigarh
18 June 2021
DIVYA AZAD
Aazaad Foundation [Regd] and World Literature India, organized a week long World Poetry Conference starting 5th June which concluded on 13th June, 2021. In this unique online venture, 130 poets from 30 countries participated in 3 Panels Discussions and 9 Poetry Reading Sessions. The Chairman of the Inaugural Function was Dr.Naji Naaman, from Lebanon and Guest of Honour, Dr. Maja Herman Sekulic, from Serbia-US. The Theme of the Conference was Literature in Difficult Times and the three Panel Discussions were held on the following themes: Sociality in the Times of the Pandemic, Impact of the Social Reality on Literary Creation and Impact on Human Relationships and Children Psychology under the Pandemic.
The Panelists included scholars from Punjab and outside, like Dr. Swaraj Raj,[Pb] Arindam Roy [UP] Dr BasudebChakraborti,[WB] Dr. Lalit Mohan Sharma,[HP] Dr.KalapanaPurhoit [Rajasthan], Dr. Bina Singh [Varanasi] Dr. Ananta K. Giri [Chennai], Dr. Deepa Chandran Ram [Australia], Dr.Randhir Gautam [Delhi] Prof. ManadakiniBhattacherya and Dr. Jay Basu [WB], Prof. Surindra Lal [Punjab], Rajiv Ranjan Roy [Chandigarh]. The welcome address was read out by Dr.BasudebChakraborti, Chairman of the Organizing Committee, while the Vote of Thanks was proposed by Dr.Manminder Singh Anand. Dr.ParneetJaggi, Secretary of the WPC-III was assisted in conducting the poetry sessions and Panel Discussions by Dr.Sushmindarjeet Kaur, Dr.Sumedha Bhandari, Dr.Tejaswini Patil Dange, Meenakshi Goswami, Dr. Shobha Sharma, Prof. Seema Jain, Prof. MandakiniBhattacherya, Ashu Garg, Ankita Uba, Dr. K. Sandhya Rao, and Sh. Raj Babu Gandham and Tariqu Muhammad.
Leading personalities of the world who were honoured at the Conference included Dr.Naji Naaman, [Literature], Dr.Dalvinder Singh Grewal [Research and Creativity], Dr. Satish K. Kapoor [Philosophy] Dr. Manpreet J. Singh [non-fiction], Dr. Usha Sridhar and Dr.Mirzana Pasic Koderic -Bosnia [Fiction], Dr.MutiuiOlawyui-Nigeria [Literature-in-Journalism] and Dr.ParneetJaggi and Dr. Vikram Singh Deol [Historical Fiction]. A total of 15 books were also premiered including Dr. Maja Herman Sukulic and Dr.Jernail S. Anand’s world classic The Mighty Irene and Survivor of A Thousand Shipwrecks, and The Call of the Citedel by Dr.ParneetJaggi and Dr. Vikram Deol.
The literary extravaganza, challenging the pandemic, concluded with dances by Sargun and Hargun and a solemn pledge by the Poets [read out by Dr. Kiran Preet], “invoking the Cosmic Powers, to give him [the poet] the power to bring joy to mankind”.
Dr.Jernail S. Anand, Chairman of the Conference, who is also Hony. Prof. Emeritus at TheEuropean Institute of Roma Studies, Belgrade, thanked all the guests, and the participating poets from various countries like USA, Canada, Greece, Italy, Bosnia, Nepal, Bangla Desh, Indonesia, Macedonia, etc. The Conference, he said, was intended to bring man to the grave realization that our progress strategies need to be revised so that they do stand in direct conflict with nature. We have lots of IQ, EQ and CQ[creative quotient], but, he lamented, we lack i.e. Imaginative Intelligence, and we are cooking a soup we may never be left alive to taste.
