GUWAHATI, Dec 27 - The Journalist and Literary Pensioners� Association has appealed to the State Government to install a life-size statue of Padmanath Gohain Baruah, a literary doyen and the first president of Asam Sahitya Sabha, in recognition of his distinguished services for the cause of development of Assamese literature and promotion of unity among all ethnic groups in the State.
In its meeting held under the presidentship of DN Chakravartty on Sunday, the association reiterated the demand for enhancement of the quantum of the literary pension to Rs 10,000 from the existing Rs 4,000.
By another resolution, the association requested the State Government to provide fund to the Publication Board, Assam, in order to enable it to publish the unpublished literary works of financially constrained literary pension-holding writers.
Bimal Kumar Hazarika, general secretary of the association, in his report, regretted the indifferent attitude of the literary pensioners towards the activities of the association and appealed to all the literary pensioners to enlist themselves as members of the association.
Eli Ahmed, Prafulla Pran Mahanta, Khanindra Chandra Das, Gunamani Bora and Navakanta Bardoloi, while stressing the need for enhancement of the amount of literary pension, appealed to the literary pensioners to be vigilant so that none could inflict torture on the mother language by distorting it.
A new executive committee of the association was formed with DN Chakravartty as president, Bimal Kumar Hazarika as working president, Prafulla Pran Hazarika as general secretary, Eli Ahmed as vice-president, Dhaniram Talukdar as treasure, and Padma Patar as organising secretary.
The association will send a delegation to call upon the Chief Minister and to submit a memo to him on behalf of the association over its various grievances.
