Pics: Hemanath Padubidri
Daijiworld Media Network – Udupi

Udupi Oct 31: The district administration, ZP and scheduled tribes development department jointly celebrated Maharshi Valmiki Jayanthi at Atal Bihari Vajpayee Auditorium, Rajathadhri on Monday October 29.
 
Maharshi Valmiki Jayanthi is celebrated every year on the eve of Ashwin Purnima (Full Moon day) in the Ashwin month.

The function was inaugurated by K Raghupati Bhat (MLA). He offered floral tribute to the portrait of Maharshi Valmiki.

Shree Thekkatte Surendra Shetty (Kannada Lecturer Govt PU College) Brahmavara, said that Valmiki has shown the right path of life in which our culture and philosophy are rooted.
 
"Lord Rama’s views are actually the wordings of Valmiki; Ramayana is a script which explains how our life should be. The life of Rama is what Valmiki wanted to portray for the coming generations. Now it’s our responsibility to explain the importance of Ramayana and Valmiki to our future generations. In the early ages caste was just to decide the occupation, but now people have forgotten the occupation and consider only the caste system," he said.

In his speech, Bhat said Ramayana and Mahabharata were written by normal men who belonged to lower class. Caste has nothing to do with intelligence. People of backward class should have self confidence to come up in life. Rama symbolizes the values that these culture shares, his life and reformation is the best example and a model for the modern generation.

He added that BJP government has allotted Rs 9 crore for the development projects of scheduled tribes and scheduled castes in the 2008 year budget.

An amount of Rs 10,000 each was distributed to five PUC toppers and Rs 5,000 each to the SSLC students for their higher education.

Udupi CMC commissioner Gokuldas Nayak, CEO S A Prabhakar Sharma, DC M T Reju, and others were present.