Mangaluru : The three day and 23rd edition of Dakshina Kannada district Kannada Sahitya Sammelana inaugurated at Town Hall on Tuesday.

Writer Na D’Souza Inaugurated the literary meet, he said that formal education should comprise humanitarian values. Ethics should be part of professional courses.

Prof B M Hegde presiding over the function.

Senior pontiff of the Udupi Pejawar Mutt Vishwesha Theertha Swami urged people to rise to the occasion and fight for the preservation of regional languages. The literary convention’s former president A P Malathi passed on the Kannada Sahitya Parishat flag to Prof B M Hegde.

There is a need to develop Kannada medical terminology and create Kannada medical literature said Prof B M Hegde.

Dr Hegde stressed the need to create Kannada terms for the original English and Latin medical terms. He maintained that the mother tongue was the best medium of instruction. Kannada medium schools should be developed along the lines of ICSE and CBSE schools. They also needed better infrastructure, he added.

Dr Hegde observed that literary conventions widen the horizon of thinking. “The objective of the literary meets should be to create a healthy society,” he added.

Homage was paid to former defence minister George Fernandes, who passed away on Tuesday. P Ganapathy Acharya, Dr Leo D’Souza, Prof Surendra Rao, Prof B M Ichlangod, Dr K V Rao, Nagesh A Bappanadu, Mogarnadu Janardana Bhat, Vittala Ramamurthy and Bhavani Pergade were felicitated on the occasion.

Mangaluru South MLA Vedavyas Kamath skipped the event in order to offer condolence to former defence minister George Fernandes.

Aruva Koragappa Shetty, Dhanakeerthi Balipa, Patla Satish Shetty, Manohar Prasad, Chandrashekhar M were conferred with ‘Kannada Siri’ award.