India News | Odisha CM Calls for Making Road Safety Drive People's Movement
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday called for making road safety drive a people's movement.
Bhubaneswar, Dec 12 (PTI) Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday called for making road safety drive a people's movement.
He attended the grand finale of the National Road Safety Short Film Festival- 2023 here and said road safety is a high-priority area for the state government.
This is the second edition of the short film festival convened by the commerce and transport departments. Last year, the event was launched to sensitise people through short movies. The film festival has received 247 entries in seven languages from eight states.
Stating that movies create emotions, Patnaik said these films help people become more empathetic.
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"Movies allow us to connect to issues we often ignore," he said, adding that these short films on road safety are an appropriate medium to engage society to solve one of its most challenging issues of the current times.
He also thanked the commerce and transport departments for the short film festival.
At least 42 films have been screened at Berhampur, Sambalpur and Angul with an enthusiastic response from about 5,000 citizens.
The CM expressed happiness for entries in Santali and Sambalpuri languages, besides in Odia.
He said local languages will certainly have greater connections with people and can create an impact on road safety awareness.
It may be mentioned that other than Odisha, there are entries from Punjab, Maharashtra, Kerala, Assam, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal.
Patnaik also expressed happiness as foreign students from neighbouring Nepal, Bangladesh and Kenya, who are studying in Bhubaneswar, have also sent films for the festival.
He congratulated all the winners for spreading road safety awareness through their films.
Odia short film “Biswasth Sathi” (Trusted Friend) won the 1st prize while a Kerala movie got the 2nd one.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)