A three-day youth festival Yuvajanothsava got underway in in the city on Wednesday with a slew of cultural and folk programmes.
The festival organised by the University of Horticultural Sciences, Bagalkot, is being held at the KSOU Convocation Hall and was inaugurated by film maker Nagathihalli Chandrashekar.
He said such festivals are important for the students to mould their personality and give a platform to showcase their latent talent. Each student is unique and is endowed with certain talents and it is for the varsities to provide suitable platform to enable the students to showcase them and for the varsities to harness them.
Mr. Chandrashekar said the kind of encouragement that agriculture receives by way of funds for research etc is denied to horticulture and this should change. India has a large youth population and a majority of them are in rural areas which is beset with economic and social problems. But the rural issues could be redressed to a large extent by encouraging horticulture in a big way, he added.
The youth festival is being attended by students drawn from nine horticulture colleges coming under the UHS and includes light music, group songs, skits, clay modelling, drawing, poster making etc.
Prior to the inauguration a procession comprising folk troupes and students clad in traditional attires, was taken out from the statue of Kuvempu at the entrance of Manasagangotri campus to the KSOU campus premises.
KSOU Vice-Chancellor S. Vidyashankar and others were present.
