post news network, Bhubaneswar, April 17: The students and faculty members of the Oriya literature and language department, Utkal University, celebrated their 45th annual function on the department premises here Friday.
A seminar was held on “Sambad and Sahitya” (news and literature), where eminent personalities from the field of journalism and literature participated.
While giving her speech on the occasion, noted writer Jayanti Manjari Rath, who retired as the deputy director general (P) Doordarshan, Bhubaneswar, exhorted the students to feel proud for being a student of Oriya literature and language. “We should be proud that Oriya is now a classical language and we are associated with it. Oriya literature is vast and has an ancient history where literatures like Fakir Mohan Senapati, Radhanath Ray, Gopabandhu Das and many others, who played important roles in the development of Oriya language and literature worked”.
Speaking on the seminar topic, Rath said, “There is a difference between news and literature. News is something, which is based on facts, whereas literature is based on life. The style of sentence construction is very important and it is what distinguishes news from literature. The use of appropriate words and simple sentences are very important while writing news; on the other hand, in literature there are no limitations regarding the use of words.”
Oriya writer G Das in his speech said, “It is really very tough to say whether the news is important or literature. Facts are the backbone of news whereas truth stands behind in literature. While writing anything, whether it’s news or a literary piece, one has to play with words and the use of words should be such that it wouldn’t hurt the sentiment of anyone.”
Speaking about the department and its development over the years, Dr Narayan Sahoo, HoD of Oriya department said, “The department has achieved many milestones as many students have passed out of the department and have achieved success in the field of literature and in the future too, we hope that our students would bring laurels to the department”.
The winners of different competitions, held in the department on the occasion of the annual day celebrations, such as poem recitation, essay and story writing, one act play, debate, song etc. were felicitated with a citation and a trophy.
Bibhuti Bhusan Baral, literary secretary read out the annual report of the department highlighting all its achievements during the present session.
