Karanth would have never allowed Nethravati diversion: writer

Sahitya Parishat to organise a meet to form an opinion on Nethravati water diversion

Keshava Sharma and Sara Abbobacker at the Coastal writers meet in Mangalore on Sunday. Photo: R. Eswarraj

Kannada writer Sara Aboobacker said here on Sunday that if Jnanpith Award winner Kota Shivaram Karanth were alive he would have seriously objected to the government’s move to divert the Nethravati. He would have forced the government to stop the project. “But we have lost him,” she told The Hindu on the sidelines of a coastal writers’ meet organised by different organisations at University College.

Earlier, while addressing the gathering at the meet Ms. Aboobacker, who took objection to the proposed project, called it as atyachar .

The proposed project would be

atikrama (transgression) on environment, the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award winner said at the meet.

Without referring to any issue in particular at the meet K. Keshava Sharma, writer and professor and head, Department of Kannada, Kuvempu University, said that writers would have to respond to the current problems and issues in society.

Later, S. Pradeep Kumar Kalkura, president, Dakshina Kannada Sahitya Parishat told The Hindu that the Parishat would shortly organise a meet to discuss the river diversion project.