Military lit fest: Dalrymple, Rikhye to be in attendance

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab government and Chandigarh administration will jointly organise the three-day Military Literature Festival from December 7 at the Lake Club.

KESHAV SINGH/HT■ (From left) Lt Gen TS Shergill, Punjab tourism minister Navjot Singh Sidhu and Western Command chief Lt Gen GS Dhillon at Punjab Bhawan in Chandigarh on Friday.

The event aims to bring the Indian and foreign defence analysts under a single roof and also showcase the country’s military history. Seminars on India’s defence literature, art, music, photography, among others will be organised during the festival.

To create awareness about the country’s defence forces, around 1,200 students from rural areas around the tricity will be invited to attend the festival. The festival is open to all and there shall be no registration fee.

Prominent Indian and foreign authors and defence experts have confirmed their participation in the event. These include US-based Ravi Rikhye; emeritus professor of history at Ulster University Tom Fraser; historian William Dalrymple; curator at the Imperial War Museum London Alan Jeffreys; military historian and publisher Tom Donovan, author of ‘Battleground Chhamb, 1971 Gen AJS Sandhu, military historian Rana Chhina, and Brigadier Darshan Khullar, among others.