The inter-collegiate youth festival 2011 conducted by Sri Venkateswara University last Wednesday turned out to be a tame affair, thanks to the inadequate publicity and the unimpressive number of participants.
Annual fete
The annual festival used to be a crowd-puller earlier, with students from across Chittoor, Kadapa and Nellore districts pouring into the city for what used to be a three-day grand gala event.
After the trifurcation of the SVU region by setting up Yogi Vemana (Kadapa) and Vikrama Simhapuri (Nellore) universities, SVU now wields control over colleges in Chittoor district alone. As the Srinivasa auditorium was already booked for a different event the next evening (Thursday), the organisers hurriedly declared the varsity's very official event closed by morning. Several academics were miffed at not being properly invited and the students felt left out of the local event.
Notwithstanding the scarce arrangements, 500 students enthusiastically took part in the 24 events such as painting, collage, clay modeling, classical/folk song and dance, instrumental and fine arts. Winners of the various events at the fest will take part in the South Zone Youth Festival to be held at Satyabhama University (Chennai) from December 18.
A.D. RANGARAJAN,in Tirupati
