Habfest@30: A celebration of 30 years of the Habitat Group

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
As part of its 30th anniversary celebrations, the Habitat Technology Group is hosting a variety of exhibitions, seminars, live demonstrations, free consultations and entertainment programmes scheduled as part of Habfest@30, a mela in the capital city’s Poojapura Ground.
While the mela will start on May 11 at 5:30 pm, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will inaugurate the 30th Anniversary Day celebration of the sustainable building solutions provider on May 14 and present the National Habitat Awards. Dr Shashi Tharoor MP will make the presidential address and poet-activist Sugathakumari and actress Manju Warrier will offer felicitations.
The valedictory programme is a KPAC drama ‘Ntuppuppaakkoraanendaarnnu’, based on Vaikom Muhammad Basheer’s short story.
Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan will inaugurate Habfest@30 and Mayor V K Prasanth will make the presidential address on May 11 at 5:30 pm. SNDP leader Vellapalli Natesan will do a felicitation.
Apart from 60 stalls on sustainable building materials and technologies, live demos on alternative construction technologies and waste management systems, free housing consultations, product designs using waste materials, street magic and cultural folk shows, Habfest@30 will feature a national seminar series with talks by prominent personalities.
National Habitat Award winner and President of Indian Habitat Forum Kirtee Shah will kick off the seminar at 6:15 pm, followed by a panel discussion on ‘Developing Trivandrum as a Green Heritage City’ on May 11.
Following a talk on ‘Rainwater Harvesting’, former Chief Secretary S M Vijayanand will inaugurate a discussion on ‘Rural Technology Cafe’ at 5:30 pm on May 12. Another Habitat awar
dee and Kerala’s Additional Chief Secretary and Director General of the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Dr W R Reddy will inaugurate a discussion on ‘Laurie Baker’s Legacy’ on May 13 at 6:30 pm.