A three-day event of Nadi Utsav to be organised by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts

As part of an effort to revive India's socio-religious connection with its waterbodies, a cultural spectacular will begin on Friday along the banks of the river Yamuna in the nation's capital. The three-day festival will feature a photo exhibition contrasting the Yamuna today with how it was fifty years ago, symposia on various topics, including the ecology and conservation of India's rivers and their significance to the nation's heritage, as well as a Sanjhi art exhibition with a theme of 15 ghats from across the nation. A festival of documentaries on waterbodies has also been organised, and each film's screening will be followed by a conversation with its directors.

The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) is organising the Nadi Utsav (festival of rivers) as part of its special project Riverine Cultures of India, which started in 2018. The Ganga, Yamuna, and Sindhu in the North, and the Krishna, Godavari, and Kaveri in the South, are the six rivers on which the project is now concentrating. It envisions celebrations of rivers in various cities, research on these rivers in the present, and workshops along the banks with participation from anthropologists, environmentalists, and folklorists. To "understand its importance in the evolution of human cultures," they want to do comprehensive research on riverine cultures in addition to one on the fabled river Saraswati.

Festivals have previously been held along the banks of the Ganga at Munger, Bihar; the Godavari in Nashik, Maharashtra; the Krishna in Vijaywada, Andhra Pradesh; and the Hooghly in Kolkata, West Bengal.