CONFERENCE UPDATE:

The International Conference on “CONTEMPORARY ISSUES: Literature and Culture Since 1980” is being held from Feb 25 to 27, 2010. The Conference will dove-tail into the First Chandigarh LitFest for which there will be several well-known literary figures visiting Chandigarh. The event has been announced over the Internet through different mailing listservs and the expected participation from Chandigarh, India and abroad will be around 250 delegates.

The event is being co-hosted by the Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi (www.chandigarhsahityaakademi.blogspot.com) which is governed by the Chandigarh Arts Council (UT) and organizes Literary events from time to time. In collaboration with the Panjab University and MELOW, the Akademi is, for the first time in the history of Chandigarh, organizing a Literary Festival.

MELOW (website www.melus-melow.org and blog www.melusmelow.blogspot.com) is an independent, registered, non-profit organization committed to the study World Literatures. A team of senior Professors from different universities in India and abroad manages the affairs of the Society. It has an International advisory board and to date it has held nine conferences. The February 2010 conference will be its tenth international conference.

About 200 delegates are expected to participate in this conference, including 20 from abroad. Well known names of academics are Profs Harish Trivedi, P.C. Kar, Tejnath Dhar, Sushila Singh, Malashri Lal. Mukesh Williams, Brajesh Sawhney, Mita Biswas, Dipankar Purukayastha, Nishi Pandey, Gulshan Kataria and KB Razdan. Creative writers particpating in the event include Shashi Deshpande, Mamta and Ravinder Kalia, Namita Gokhale and Manjula Padmanabhan. They will interact with local writers and scholars like Dr KL Zakir, V. Mehndirata, Indu Bali, Chander Trikha, Atulvir Arora, Nirupama Dutt and university teachers including Profs Manju Jaidka and Anil Raina, the main organizers of the conference and LitFest. Dr DS Gupt and Madhav Kaushik, Vice-President and Secretary, respectively, of the Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi, are also involved in the organization.

The 3-day Event will be inaugurated on 25th Feb by Prof RC Sobti, Vice-Chancellor, Panjab Universtiy, Chandigarh. The Special Guest on this occasion will be Shri Pradip Mehra, IAS, Adviser to the Administrator, UT, Chandigarh.

There will be a special Isaac Sequeira Memorial Lecture delivered by Prof PC Kar on 27^th February.

The ISM Award for the best paper presented at the last (Shantiniketan) Conference will be given to Dr Dipankar Roy.

An anthology comprising selected papers of the Shantiniketan Conference will be released at the Inauguration.