CHENNAI: The World Telugu Federation (WTF), an organisation that promotes the Telugu language, culture, art, heritage, tradition, and business, recently conducted its 11th Biennial International conference. Since 1993, the conference is organised once in every two years. The federation celebrated its silver jubilee this year. “With a federation of over 2,000 members from across the globe, we’ve conducted the conference in Indian cities like Vizag, Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Vijayawada, and in Singapore and Malaysia, too.
It has been an exciting journey so far,” said VL Indira Dutt, president, WTF. Shedding light on the need to revive traditional arts and create awareness among the younger generation, she said, “We are particular about propagating our traditional arts and crafts. We believe the youth should not just grow in their fields and make use of advancements, but should also preserve our culture.
So, we bring in artists from all over, and this year, over 97 traditional artists from Andhra alone performed,” explained Indira. The event featured folk songs and dances, a nose flute performance, sand art, shadow show, and a Kuchipudi dance performance. Artisans and entrepreneurs from different parts of the country participated. While talking about it, one of the coordinators said, “We have about 36 different stalls featuring handlooms and handicrafts.
We have tried to bring in the traditional essence and also promote entrepreneurs.” We host delegates from Cambodia, Uganda, Kenya, and every other nook and corner. About 80 organisations are affiliated with us,” said Indira. “We always look forward to this conference as it is a good place to network. We also find Telugu people from around the world using different methods to protect and spread our culture.
Plus, there is also a lot of knowledge sharing that happens here,” said one of the delegates. In 2015, WTF collaborated with Visakhapatnam Urban Development Authority to establish a museum ‘Telugu Samskrutika Niketanam’. “It has been one of our greatest contributions and we expect to grow bigger and better over the years,” said Indira.