The two-day 18th district Kannada Sahitya Sammelan will be held at the Karnatak Vidyavardhaka Sangha Hall in Dharwad from Monday.
Kannada Sahitya Parishat district president Lingaraj Angadi told reporters on Sunday that sammelan president and writer Hema Pattanshetti will deliver the presidential address.
Deputy Commissioner Snehal R. will hoist the national flag at 8 a.m. on Monday.
Vice-president of KVV Sangha Sanjeev Kulkarni will hoist the Kannada flag.
DIMHANS Chief Administrative Officer Siddalingayya Hiremath will inaugurate the “Kannadakkagi Nadige” programme at 9 a.m.
The former vice-chancellor of Akkamahadevi Women’s University Sabiha Bhoomigoud will inaugurate the meet at 10.30 a.m.
District in-charge Minister Santosh Lad will inaugurate the literary exhibition of the conference. Union Minister Pralhad Joshi and Sharan Sahitya Parishat president C. Somashekhar will release books.
MLA Arvind Bellad will inaugurate the book stall. President of KVV Sangha Chandrakant Bellad will preside over the function.
A session on “Artificial Intelligence: Challenges and Opportunities” will be held at 2 p.m.
IT entrepreneur and writer Sanket Patil will speak on “AI’s impact on literary creation and translation” and digital archivist H.L. Omprakash will speak on “AI: Education, employment and future life”.
Dharwad IIT dean S.M. Shivaprasad will preside over it.
A poetry session will be held at 4 p.m., chaired by S.R. Aashi.
Vishweshwari Hiremath will inaugurate cultural programme at 6 p.m.
At 9.30 a.m. on Tuesday, writer Siddanagouda Patil will speak on “Kannada language and life”, Shankar Halagatti on “Children’s literature and magazines” and Venkatesh Machakanur on “The survival of Kannada schools”.
Shivashankar Hiremath will preside over it.
At 11.30 a.m., a session on “Women’s Literature on a New Path” will be organised.
K.R. Siddagangamma will speak on “Women’s novels: Gender equality”, Shridhar Hegde Bhadhran on “Women’s poetry: Expression and creativity” and M. Usha on “Women’s autobiographies: Narratives of inner lives”.
Shalini Raghunath will preside over it.
A session on contemporary literary thought will be organised at 3 p.m. Nagaratna Parande will speak on “Challenges in translation” Sudha Koujageri on “Language development and contemporary tensions” and Rekha Jogul on “The contribution of Basel Mission to Kannada literature”.
At 3.30 p.m., there will be an interaction with the conference president.
A public meeting will be organised at 4.30 p.m., followed by the valedictory ceremony at 5.30 p.m.
Writer Vinaya Okkund will deliver the valedictory address. Legislative Council Chairman Basavaraj Horatti will preside over it.
Published – March 29, 2026 09:51 pm IST
