Mangaluru to host national-level children’s festival at Kadri on September 4

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru, Aug 29, 2026: A national-level children’s festival and Sri Krishna fancy dress competition will be held at the premises of Kadri Sri Manjunatha Temple in Mangaluru on September 4.

The event is being organised by Kalkura Prathishtana in association with Kadri Sri Manjunatha Temple with the aim of fostering spiritual awareness among children while identifying and encouraging their talents, said Kalkura Prathishtana president Pradeep Kumar Kalkura.

Addressing a press conference, he said the children’s festival has been organised for the past 44 years. This year, the Sri Krishna fancy dress competition will be conducted in 44 categories. Various competitions will be held simultaneously across 12 stages, with programmes continuing until midnight.

The day’s events will begin at 9 am with Sri Krishna Varna Vaibhava. At 10.30 am, women will participate in a traditional programme of churning curd using a wooden churner to extract butter while singing traditional songs.

Various cultural programmes will be held from noon.

At 1 pm, the Sri Krishna Janmashtami celebrations will be inaugurated by lighting a lamp at the Nandagokula stage in the presence of dignitaries, little Krishnas and mothers. As part of the celebrations, a special traditional cradle ceremony will also be held for babies below six months, with women singing lullabies.

A range of literary and cultural programmes will be organised from noon to midnight. Participants can register their names at the venue itself to take part in the competitions, Pradeep Kumar Kalkura said.

For more information, the organisers can be contacted at the Kalkura Prathishtana office on 0824-2492239, 9448125949 or 9845083736.

Organisers Kadri Navaneeth Shetty, Dr Prabhakar Joshi, Sudhakar Rao Pejawar, Dayananda Kateel, Vijayalakshmi Shetty and Manjula Shetty were present.