3rd Pune International Literary Festival 2015  

For 3 days, all roads in Pune led to just one destination – Yashada, where the prestigious 3^rd Pune International Literary Festival (PILF) 2015 was being held from 4^th to 6^th September 2015. Not just people from Pune, but literature & art lovers from all over India and some also from across the globe participated in the festival. It is estimated to have been visited by over 5000 people in three days.

Vishwakarma Publications presented the 3^rd Pune International Literary Festival (PILF) 2015 in association with MAEER’s MIT, Pune. It was hosted at the sprawling and scenic campus of YASHADA, in a creative environment bustling with energy and ideas.

It was an innovative platform that welcomed over 100 authors, who spoke on literature, art, music, food, you name it – covering every aspect that would excite any creative mind.

PILF is the brainchild of Founder & Festival Director, Dr. Manjiri Prabhu, Pune-based noted author. “The 3rd PILF Festival was an overwhelming success, thanks to the authors, writers, literary personalities and the people of Pune. We started this festival in 2013, and are delighted that each year it has only been going in one direction – upwards. This year the festival with 80 plus exciting sessions, panel discussions, workshops, and book launches was a fun-filled, enriching event and a creative hub for the thinking, imaginative and exploratory mind”, says a beaming Dr. Manjiri Prabhu,

Some of this year’s highlights:

·        A section titled ‘Yours Truly’ –Separate sessions with Shatrughan Sinha, Shashi Tharoor, Sudha Murthy, Ashok Chopra and Rujuta Divekar

·        Many Book Launches and Pre-Launch discussion of the books on Shammi Kapoor and Mohammad Rafi.

·        Panel Discussions with proposed well-known international and national authors and personalities like Piers Moore Ede (UK), Anand Neelakantan, Neil Hollander (France), Sunil Sethi, Satyajit Bhatkal, R. Raj Rao, Shanta Gokhale, Jerry Pinto, Francois Gautier, Kathryn Hummel (Australia), Katharina Ritter (Germany)

·        Court Martial / Roast with noted author Ravi Subramaniam

·        An Exhibition on Agatha Christie, the Queen of Crime in celebration of her 125^th Birth Anniversary,

·        Young Adult Workshops involving schools, on Haiku and different genres of writing, positive thinking, personality development and a lot more

·        Workshops in Ad Film making, Motivation and Inspiration. Ayurveda and Allopathy etc.

·        A special Short–story writing for Films workshop-cum-competition organized by iPop Media.

·        Book Readings and Poetry sessions by eminent writers and Poets like Randhir Khare, Kala Ramesh and regional Poets like Salma and Mamta Sagar to name a few.

·        Special sessions on translations and Marathi Literature

·        Session on Book Translation of ‘Baluta’ by Daya Pawar

Social Theme of the Festival:

In a bid to make the festival more meaningful, every year PILF selects an important social cause and highlights it during the festival so as to create awareness of the issue through the vast platform of PILF. This year, the social theme defining some of the panel discussions was Global Image of India – Every citizen should work towards upholding the core moral values of society, contribute to the social and environmental welfare of the country and be a global ambassador for India.