Quetta: First ever Balochistan Literature and Culture Festival has been planned to be held in September this year.
This was decided in a planning meeting held with Secretary Culture Noor ul Haq Baloch in Chair, in Balochi Academy on Thursday.
Meeting was attended by wide range of stakeholders including former Federal Minister Zubeda Jalal, literary authors, representatives of literary academies, artists, members of Civil Society Balochistan and so on.
Different options and possibilities about the upcoming festival were discussed in the meeting. It was eventually decided that festival would be held in late September and University of Balochistan was chosen as the venue.
Balochistan Literature and Culture Festival will showcase literature, culture and soft image of Balochistan to the world. It’s expected that more than a 100 people from different parts of the country would be invited to the festival.
It was also agreed in the meeting that this festival will be organized in the same professional way as Karachi and Lahore Literature Festivals are held every year.
Culture department fully owns this festival and will do whatever we can to make it a success – Noor ul Haq Baloch
“Culture department fully owns this festival and will do whatever we can to make it a success,” said Noor ul Haq Baloch who heads culture department.
He further said that holding this festival will be a milestone for the government and it will give a message that not everything is bad in Balochistan.
Zubeda Jalal said that Oxford University Press (OUP) has agreed in principle to provide technical support to the upcoming Balochistan Literature and Culture Festival.
She assured her full support to the participants of the meeting for making the proposed literature festival a success.
In the end a working committee was formulated which was assigned the task of preparing the basic framework and the agenda of the Balochistan Literature and Culture Festival till 15th June.
It was also principally agreed that Zubeda Jalal would be the lead organizer of the festival and Noor ul Haq Baloch will represent government of Balochistan.
Civil Society members attending the event expressed their gratitude to the Secretary Culture and vowed to do their level best to make this event a success and a routine event in forthcoming years.
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