The Chief Minister, Mr Pratapsingh Rane, who was the chief guest on the occasion said that his government is ready to support holding of World Konkani Conference in Goa.
“The state has a unique culture of creative geniuses and Konkani language has been instrumental in maintaining this culture,” he observed.
Earlier, the Governor, Mr S C Jamir inaugurated the literary conference, at the open auditorium of Kala Academy, in the presence of a number of former presidents of the Parishad.
Mr Jamir, describing Konkani language as the entity which gave Goa its distinct identity, said that there should be reciprocal understanding between people by way of languages.
The local languages must develop linkages with the world community, at large, the Governor said, pointing out that languages are vehicles of communication and find expression of feelings. Learning languages helps in fostering emotional integration between people, he noted.
Moraes, delivering his presidential address said that literature in Konkani has been generated through various scripts and the process would continue, which is a fact. “However,” he said, “many scripts are unable to standardise the language and hence our predecessors as well as leaders who shouldered the Konkani movement chose Devnagari script as the standard script.”
Speaking further, Moraes said that everyone following other scripts in Konkani could slowly shift to Devnagri, over a period of time. The future generation should very well be conversant with the Devnagri script, he opined.
Moraes also stressed on the need to make Konkani education compulsory in Goan schools and impress upon the governments in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala to introduce Konkani in their schools. “There is a need to launch another movement for achieving this goal,” he pointed out.
Moraes said that Goan bodies like Goa University, Goa Konkani Akademi and Kala Academy must involve Konkani institutions from outside the state in their projects like Konkani encyclopedias, dictionaries, research and translation work.
“In our midst there are few narrow-minded people who have build walls of regionalism, caste, religion, dialect and community, which in turn create hindrances before the parishad to achieve its goals,” he stated.
“The government should provide the Akhil Bharatiya Konkani Parishad with an office in the state and an annual grant,” Moraes said.
The former co-operation minister of Karnataka, Mr R V Deshpande, who was the guest of honour, said that Konkani is a secular language and Konkani people are secular in nature. He further said that a World Konkani Centre should be constructed, at Mangalore.
The outgoing president of the parishad, Basti Vaman Shenoy also spoke on the occasion.
The president of the reception committee of the conference, Mr Shantaram Naik, in his welcome address said that Konkani is a great binder and unites people, while the president of the national organising committee, Dr Tanaji Halarnkar urged for promotion of Konkani language by crossing the barriers of religion, caste, region and script.
A number of former presidents of the parishad namely Ravindra Kelekar, Purushottam Mallya, Uday Bhembre, Chandrakant Keni and Pundalik Naik, among others were felicitated on the occasion.
A number of new books in Konkani of various scripts were also released during the inaugural session.
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