PM urges writers to work together

Terming poverty the main enemy of South Asia, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday urged all, including poets and littérateurs, to work together to ensure peace in the region by freeing it from poverty. “The main enemy of this South Asia region and the SAARC countries is poverty and we’ll have to come out of its vicious cycle, and this is our main target,” she said. The Prime Minister said, “Let’s work together to turn South Asia into a poverty-free and peaceful region so that the people of this area could lead a better life.” Hasina was addressing the inaugural function of the two-day SAARC Literary Festival -2014 organised by WRITE Foundation, the Bangladesh chapter of the Foundation of SAARC Writers and Littérateurs, at the National Museum at Shahbagh in the capital today. The Festival has been organised aiming to promote literary and cultural activities in the SAARC member countries with the theme of ‘Beyond Borders: Towards Trust and Reconciliation’. Speaking at the function, the Prime Minister expressed her belief that the real life-oriented literature could bring back people from the darkness of clashes and ferocities to the path of light, according to UNB.