Kabita Rai secures first position in national poem competition

Kabita Rai of Bhojpur district has emerged as the winner in the National Poem Festival-2078 BS organised today.

Amrita Ismriti of Dhading district has secured second position and Bardia’s Niranjana Kumari Chand, Taplejung’s Sabita Baral and Nuwakot’s Prakash Silwal have stood third in the competition.

Rai had penned and submitted ‘Desh ko Naksha’ (Map of the Country), Ismriti’s ‘Dadhelo Pachhi Basanta Aaunchha’ (Spring arrives in after wildfire), Chand’s ‘Yugin Pratidhwani’ (epochal eco), Baral’s ‘Aama Ma Aaye aba’ (Mother! Here I Come, ) and Silwal’s ‘Boddhisatwa Ko Khop’ (The vaccine of Bodhisatwa’s ).

The winner of the competition will receive cash Rs 50,000 while the first runner-up will take home Rs 40,000. Similarly, the second and third runner-up will get Rs 30,000 each, according to the Nepal Academy which had organised the poetry competition.

The winner and the runner-ups will be feted with certificates of honour as well in an apt time.

Academy’s chancellor Ganga Prasad Uprety, inaugurating the 64th anniversary of the Academy, shared that the national poem competition was conceived by Mahakavi (The Great Poet) Laxmi Prasad Devkota and executed by Yugkavi (The poet of era) Siddicharan Shrestha.

Coordinator of the National Poem Competition-2078 BS and Academy’s member Prof Dr Hemnath Poudel said that any literary creations depicting the realities would come out as the best ones.

Another member of the Academy Prof Jagat Prasad Upadhyay expressed his happiness over the good literary creations utilising the time during prohibitory order enforced to contain the second wave of COVID-19.

There were a total of 764 contenders participating in the poem competition. Out of them, 41 were shortlisted. Eight Nepalis residing in various countries abroad had also applied in the competition while participants from 20 districts in the country had submitted their poems, shared communication coordinator at the Academy, Sashi Lumumbu.

On the occasion, altogether 15 staff of the Academy were honoured with cash prize Rs 15,000 each and recognised of their longstanding service to the Academy.