PRELIMS SNIPPETS – November 19th 2022

Annnual Baliyatra

Why in News?

  • The Prime Minister in his address to the Indian diaspora in Bali on the side-lines of the G20 summit has recently mentioned the annual Baliyatra on the banks of the Mahanadi in Cuttack that commemorates age-old links between ancient Kalinga and Southeast Asia.

Highlights

  • Baliyatra of year 2022 also found a place in the Guinness World Records for achieving an impressive feat of origami, the creation of beautiful paper sculptures.
  • Baliyatra, literally ‘voyage to Bali’ is one of the country’s largest open-air fares.
  • Baliyatra is a week-long event which begins on Kartik Purnima (full moon night in the month of Kartik)
  • It is organised every year to commemorate the 2,000-year-old maritime and cultural links between ancient Kalinga (today’s Odisha) and Bali and other South and Southeast Asian regions like Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Burma (Myanmar) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
  • According to historians, popular items of trade between Kalinga and Southeast Asia included pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, silk, camphor, gold, and jewellery.
  • The Bali Yatra celebrates the ingenuity and skill of those expert sailors who made Kalinga one of the most prosperous empires of its time.
  • Baliyatra has a significant commercial dimension in addition to its cultural and historical elements.
  • It is a time when people purchase everything from automobiles and electronic devices to local artisanal products at prices that are comparatively low.
  • The district administration allots more than 1,500 stalls to traders through an auction, and the fair is estimated to see business worth more than Rs 100 crore over the period it lasts.
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