MARGAO: “Integrity of the Konkani Bhasha Mandal (KBM) members has made this organisation so great today that people without any hesitation readily give donations for their various programmes,” said noted writer Damodar Mauzo while complementing all the people who established and nursed the organisation all these years.
Speaking at the 56th Foundation Day celebration, Mauzo shared his experiences at the recently concluded PEN conference where only 50 of the representatives from 87 countries knew English while others proudly spoke their language.
“A person who is proud of his language can today get a translator,” he said pointing out that a Tamil writer is elected to the PEN committee and further pointed out that Konkani is already in the Eighth schedule thereby making it a national language.
Students who scored highest marks in Konkani at SSC, HSSC and graduate level were felicitated at the hands of Deep Karapurkar and Kamlesh Naik. Those felicitated were 10 students who scored 95 marks at SSC board exams, 6 who got 98 marks at HSSC level and two students who got highest marks at BA level in Konkani.
Besides, Dr Hanumanth Chopdekar was felicitated for his research in Konkani that he has published through various articles. The following literary awards were presented: Konkani Bhasha Mandal’s literary award to Jilu Gaonkar, Narcinva Damodar Naik memorial award to Prasad Suresh Pagi and Roque Baretto memorial award to Roopali Kirtani while Dinesh Manerkar was presented the award for child literature.
Victoria Fernandes was presented an award for her service to Konkani in recognition of her valiant battle to make Konkani the official language of Goa and other matters related to the mother tongue while K B Rao was presented an award for translating English literature to Konkani.
Other awards presented were: Felicio Cardoso Teacher award to Dilip Naik, Journalist Award to Anil Pai, Chandrakant Keni award for article writer to Ramdas Kelekar, Jose Piedade award for a person working for Konkani to Jose Lourenco.
