3-day All India Telugu Conference in Orissa

Berhampur (Orissa), Feb 3 (PTI) The three-day sixthAll India Telugu Conference will be held for the first time atBerhampur, the southern Orissa town from tomorrow.� ��

Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and his AndhraPradesh counterpart N Kiran Kumar Reddy are scheduled toinaugurate the mega conference, being held after four years.

The last All India Telugu conference was held atChennai in 2007.

The conference, organised by Potti Sreeramulu TeluguUniversity (PSTU) in association with Berhampur based Teluguorganisation ''Andhra Bhasabhivardhani Samajam'' and severalother associations is expected to be attended by around 2000delegates from across the country, said the organisers here.

Besides central ministers, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh,over 20 leading cine artists in Telugu film industry,academicians, literateurs would also attend the conference,said Chairman of the organising committee P.Satyanarayana.

Telugu speaking people living in states other thanAndhra Pradesh will discuss their problems in the fields ofeducation and culture and recommend to the respectivestate governments remedial measures, he said.

There are three crore Telugu speaking people residingoutside Andhra Pradesh and about 400 Telugu organisations arefunctioning outside Andhra Pradesh, said the organisers.

�In fact we had decided to hold the all India Teluguconference at Berhampur in 1999. But the conference could notbe held on the same year because of the super cyclone,� saidD.Munirathnam Naidu, the director of the International TeluguCenter, PSTU.

Around 40 per cent of the population of Berhampur,located close to Andhra Pradesh and once part of erstwhileMadras Presidency, are believed to be Telugu speaking.

The town''s connection with its neighbouring state wasfurther strengthened when former prime minister P V NarsimhaRao contested from Berhampur Lok Sabha constituency in 1990.

Rao hailed from Andhra Pradesh.