President M Abdul Hamid has urged promoting traditional Bangladeshis culture by collecting its different scattered elements from different corners and expand it at home and abroad, reports BSS.

“Avoid bad elements of satellite culture…. but accept good things of it,” he said while inaugurating the ‘First International Folklore Festival-2018’ in Netrokona on Wednesday.

Hamid hoped that different institutions and personalities, including poets, litterateurs, dramatists, builders, collectors and researchers, would come forward to help flourish country’s own traditional culture across the world.

Noting that the whole world has now become a global village due to free flow of information, which is now changing the lifestyle of both rural and urban people, President Hamid said rapid expansion of satellite culture is influencing the cultures of different countries and nations as well.

Stressed the need for establishing a ‘Folk Culture Research Centre’ in the country to carry out research on age-old folk literature of Bangla, modern ballads and folk culture, he said all scattered ballads or gitikas of the vast Bengali literature should be preserved for the greater interest of the nation.

“Bhawaiya, Bhatiali, Murshidi, Baul and Palagan songs are still available across the country like its flowing rivers,” Hamid observed.

“The culture is the mirror of life as it contains the real identity of individuals, a nation and a country,” the President said, adding that such this international event would strengthen ties among the folklore researchers and artists as a whole.

The president said scholars across the world highly appreciate the ‘Maimansingha Gitika’, a collection of folk ballads including Mahua, Malua, Dewan Madina and Birangana Sakhina.

Hamid said he believed that this international folklore festival would help develop “quality of our history, customs and lifestyle in the days to come”.

He said Bangladesh is advancing towards tremendous development under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the development trend is also visible in the fields of art-literature-culture right now.

The ‘Greater Mymensingh Cultural Forum’ (GMCF) organised the festival with the participation of noted folklore researchers and scholars of different countries.

Later, the president unveiled the foundation stone of Sheikh Kamal IT Park in the district town.