Guwahati, February 23 (IANS): In a bid to establish western Assam’s Kokrajhar globally as a destination of knowledge sharing and peace, the Bodoland University is organising the first 4-day Bodoland International Knowledge Festival at the varsity from February 27.
The Festival, which is being organised in collaboration with Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) administration, would witness the participation of Nobel Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus from Bangladesh among others.
BTR Chief Executive Member Pramod Boro said that this would be one of the biggest events being conducted in the BTR. “We want to establish Kokrajhar and the BTR as destinations for education, knowledge sharing and tourism with this mega event. Transforming BTR into an intelligence hub,” he told the media in Guwahati.
Boro said that over the years, Kokrajhar and the BTR were portrayed negatively and the area was known for insurgency and backwardness. The BTR chief said, “Time has changed and we have moved ahead. Now we want Kokrajhar and the BTR to be known as a destination for intelligent people, not insurgency.”
Boro said they want to draw knowledge and expertise from experts in various fields to enhance epistemic dialogue across cultures and communities. “With this Knowledge Festival, we want to create an atmosphere of dialogue and participatory priorityasetting for addressing concerns of contemporary human society which would promote scientific temperament to address social and economic concerns of the society in a post-conflict scenario,” he added.
Over 300 invited delegates from across India and 35 international delegates from 14 countries would participate in the festival, where more than 10,000 participants comprising students, academicians, researchers, development practitioners, government officials, politicians, entrepreneurs, farmers and SHG members among others would take part.
The festival would document the knowledge exchange for continued learning and praxis, knowledge-action-reflection by different communities of practice in BTR.
The thematic area of the Bodoland International Knowledge Festival is the achievement of social development priorities and key Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2030 in the contemporary BTR and the world.
In the mega event, several themes and sub-themes would be deliberated and discussed.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Union Minister of State for Education and External Affairs RK Ranjan Singh, Assam Assembly Speaker Biswajit Daimari and Vice Chancellors of five different universities of Assam among others would attend the festival.
