Mangaluru :The four-day flower show and Fruit show began in Kadri Park on Saturday. Veteran writer Erya Lakshminarayana Alva inaugurated the exhibition.

Weight lifting and angling competitions, a food festival, consumer exhibition, cultural programmes and floricultural and horticultural show will remain for next nine-day.

The consumer exhibition will be held for 45 days at the exhibition grounds in Lalbagh. There would be different entertainment programmes at the stage as well as for children. Cultural programmes will be conducted both at Lalbagh as well as in Kadri Park where a four-day floricultural and horticultural show will begin from Saturday evening. Dakshina Kannada Weight Lifters’ Association will organise a two-day weight lifting competition at the Town Hall from January 27. In all, 28 teams with 200 contestants, both men and women, are expected to participate in it.

The food festival will be conducted at the old deer park in Kadri Park for four days from Saturday. It will be inaugurated in the evening.

B. Ramanath Rai, Minister in-charge of Dakshina Kannada, told presspersons here on Friday that the beach festival would be conducted for two days from January 30 at Panambur beach. There would be a Yakshagana show on January 30. In addition, the two-day show would comprise volleyball, dance, music and angling competitions.

He said that a procession would be taken out from Kadri Park to Lalbagh from 4 p.m. on Saturday ahead of the inaugural session. There would be a stage function at Lalbagh at 6.30 p.m. for the inauguration.

Mr. Rai said that the district administration would present ‘Karavali Gourava Prashasthi’ to select persons on January 26.

Some of the artistes who would present programmes at the Kadri Park would include Pandit Upendra Bhat of Pune (January 25), Vidwan R. Sooryaprakash of Chennai and M. Venkatesh Kumar of Dharwad (January 28), Arshad Ali Khan of Kolkatta and Vidwan M. Harikrishnan of Thrissur (January 31).