An emperor to lead Orissa into new millennium

The festival, to be known as Kalinga-Kharavela Mahotsav, would be held in collaboration with the Delhi-based Rishav Dev Foundation, and would include seminars at various places in the country, installation of statues and special publications.

The programme would begin with a three-day seminar on the emperor here from January 16 next to be attended by scholars, historians and researchers from all over the country, the Chief Minister, JB Patnaik told a news conference here.

The objective (of organising thefestival) is to mark the country’s imminent entry into another millennium and highlight the person who symbolised the Oriya pride, Patnaik said. Patnaik, who described Kharavela as the country’s greatest monarch ever, said what separated him from others was that he was willing to defend the country’s borders from foreign invasion. Chandragupta Maurya ruled before Kharavela but he did not control such a vast region, Patnaik said.

He said that seminars on the monarch would be held in other towns of the state where his statues would also be installed.

An expert committee would be constituted to study the existing sculptures of Kharavela period which began in One BC before shaping the statues to ensure accuracy in the work.

Besides, efforts would be made to rename one of the roads in Delhi after the emperor as Kharavela Marg, he said.A host of other programmes including a martial art festival and festival of folk dances would be organised to mark the year-long programme. The seminar to be held here soonwould be attended by MN Deshpande, former director general of Archaeological Survey of India, Prof B N Mukherjee of Calcutta University, and historians, Dr Nilanjan Sikdar Dutta, Pandit Chandrakant Walia, Prof Karuna Sagar Behera, Dr R C Agrawal, Dr I K Sharma, Prof R C Sharma, director of Bharat Kala Bhavan and Dr C P Sinha of K P Jaiswal Research Institute, Patna, he said.