The festival is dedicated to St. Ketevan, a former Queen of Georgia with this year’s edition scheduled to host 70 artists from Argentina, Spain, UK, France, Georgia, Australia, Japan, Russia, Vietnam, Portugal, Switzerland and India, over a period of three days.
The Ketevan Sacred Music Festival, an international event held annually in Goa, was postponed on Thursday a day after the World Health Organization escalated the global coronavirus outbreak to the status of a pandemic.
“In light of the WHO escalating Covid-19 to a pandemic status, we deeply regret to announce that our festival needs to be postponed for now, but will be rescheduled after analysing the situation at a future date,” a statement from the organisers said.
“Since the core spirit of our festival has always been to promote peaceful co-existence, we are keen to follow all the health and travel guidelines stated by the Indian Government to ensure the safety of everyone involved,” the statement reads.
Health Minister Vishwajit Rane said he wrote to Chief Minister Pramod Sawant pointing out that the musicians who will be attending are foreign nationals from countries which already have confirmed cases of Covid-19.
The festival is dedicated to St. Ketevan, a former Queen of Georgia with this year’s edition scheduled to host 70 artists from Argentina, Spain, UK, France, Georgia, Australia, Japan, Russia, Vietnam, Portugal, Switzerland and India, over a period of three days.
Rane added that changes had been proposed to school schedules also. “Today, I have also asked the CM to consider a system where at least for the next 40 days, we ensure children’s safety by asking them to study from home. At least till class VII. This is just a suggestion and will need to be discussed,” he said.
In the past two days the Mormugao Port Trust has cancelled berths to European cruise liners and has barred them from entering Goa’s limits.
Meanwhile, the health ministry has asked all the departments of the government to procure masks and other safety equipment. “We are also now tied up with FM (radio) channels and running round-the-clock campaigns on all the precautions needed. We have also asked people not to gather when not needed and ensure they keep a check on their public meetings,” Rane said.