VoW awardees honoured at Valedictory session
By OUR STAFF REPORTER
DEHRADUN, 17 Nov: The eighth edition of Valley of Words Arts and Literature Festival concluded at Hotel Madhuban here on Sunday. At the valedictory session of the festival, the VoW awardees were honoured by the VoW board in an informal function where every awardee was given a chance to interact with the audience. In addition, two special sessions were held on Sunday in memory of senior journalist and poet Jaskiran Chopra and noted scientist Dhirendra Sharma who had passed away since the last edition of the VoW festival.
A poetry and Mushaira session was held in memory of late Jaskiran Chopra by her brother and former diplomat brother Navtej Sarna chairing the session with her husband Ashutosh Saklani. Amandeep Singh, Deepanjali Singh, Laxmi Shankar Bajpai, Anjum Sharma, Mamta Kiran and Supriya Newar recited poems on this occasion. In the memory of late Dhirendra Sharma, a session on Science, Public Policy and public good was held where discussants were Dinesh C Sharma, Amjad Hussain and Rajendra Dobhal.
Sessions were also held on Foreign Policy that ought to be realist, not idealist, feating Amna Mirza, Rekha Saxena and Parliamentarians from various parties; on AI and the Future of Medicine featuring Amjad Hussain and Dinesh C Sharma with Rajendra Dobhal chairing the session; Poetry @ 90 on the poetry of Brig (Retd) KG Behl with particular reference on his poetry in English on Bhagwat Gita featuring Ram Vinay Singh and Manoj Dhyani with DS Mann on the chair; For a Fit Fighting Force on recruitments for the Defence forces with Maj Gen (Retd. Sanjay Sharma, VADM Vinay Bahdhwar, Capt Yashika Tyagi and AVM Deepak Gaur with Lt Gen (Retd) PJS Pannu as the moderator; on Travels of Nanak with Amardeep Singh and Biju Negi and a workshop on Languages of Madura with Shalini Rao as the moderator.
In addition, there were six book launches on Sunday. Book launches and related discussions held, included Yodha by Shiv Kunal Verma discussed with Sana Durrani and Monisha Dutta, Aarohi by Mukul Kumar discussed with Bharti Sharma and Someshwar Pandeya, Uff Mannoo by Amita Thakur discussed with Sushil Upadhyay and Sachin Chauhan, The Siachen Soldier & Other Stories by Nitin Sathe discussed with Ira Chauhan and Lt Gen (Dr) AK Singh, Justaju by Supriya Newar discussed with Bharti Sharma and Ram Vinay Singh and Khakhi Mein Sthithpragya by IPS officer Anil Raturi discussed with Sushil Upadhyay and Radha Raturi. VoW awardees Uday Prakash, Vibha Batra, Shabnam Minwala, Anjum Katyal and Suresh Pant also had sessions on Sunday.
Well-known dancer Sandip Kundu performed Kuchipudi dance at Iti Nritya while Manipuri dance was performed by Ratri Manik. Students of Jaswant Modern School staged a drama based on Abhigyan Shakuntalam, while Lead @ VoW-4 was held with the theme ‘The Himalayas: Physical and Metaphysical’.
At the Valedictory function Smriti Ravindra, Uday Prakash, Shabnam Minwala, Vibha Batra, Manoj Mitta, Suresh Pant, Anjum Katyal and Subhash Nirav were among those honoured.
