State should promote creative talents: PM

Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 11 (PTI) Prime MinisterManmohan Singh today said the State was obliged to play afacilitating role in developing and promoting creative talentsand diverse cultural expressions of the country.

In his speech after presenting the 43rd Jnanpith awardto eminent Malayalam poet O N V Kurup for 2007 at a functionhere, Singh said the promotion of literature in Indianlanguages was an area where a lot more work was required.

"Appreciating Indian culture should involve theunderstanding, acknowledgement and recognition of all thedifferent strands and hues of our composite cultural fabric,"the Prime Minister said.

Singh said while educated Indians were quite familiarwith the works of famous writers of the West, they were muchless exposed to the works of outstanding litterateurs inIndian languages.

"Though in recent years, Indian writers in English hadearned a name for themselves both in the country and abroad,the flowering of literary talent in other Indian languagesneeds a larger platform and greater recognition," he said.

The Prime Minister stressed the need to promotecross-translations of works in various Indian languages.

"The beautiful poems of O N V Kurup should beavailable in Bengali or Marathi. Promotion of such cross-translations is an important task that has been taken up bythe Sahitya Akademi."

He said the Akademi had been asked to step up theirefforts to propagate the richness of contemporary andclassical Indian literature. (More) PTI MVG BN RA