IGNCA Emerged as Varied Cultural Hub in Idea, Innovation & Implementation
by Onkareshwar Pandey
New Delhi, Oct 5, 2018: The IGNCA, India’s prestigious institution for preservation and promotion of Art & Culture, working under Dr. Mahesh Sharma led Ministry of Culture is running in full speed nowadays. Slowly and steadily, the IGNCA has emerged as the main hub of varied cultural activities in Delhi, surpassing several other institutions at least in Idea, Innovation and Implementation.
After successfully organizing some very innovative and interesting programmes like ‘VIOLINS THROUGH THE GENERATION’ a musical evening under its monthly series of Concert, by Padma Bhushan Vidushi Dr N.Rajam & Ragini Shankar and HUNAR KI KHOJ, a talent hunt programme, on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) New Delhi is now organizing the National Behrupiya Festival from today 5th to 7th October, 2018, in its premises.
This first national level Behrupiya festival is being organized with innovation, in which 70 Behrupiyas artists from different states of the country will perform their talents singles, doubles and collectively. “The objective of the festival is to revive the very old and extinct art of India, giving people authentic information of this art (especially in the younger class), to increase the respect of people associated with this art,” said Dr. Sachidanand Joshi, MS, IGNCA.
This is perhaps the 6th major programme being organized by IGNCA in last 4-5 weeks so far.
The month of Aug had ended with a melodious evening - “The music of the monsoon - The magic of Malhar” presented by Ustad Nishant Khan on 30th of August 2018, which was highly appreciated by the music lovers of the national capital.
In the first week of September, IGNCA had organized a "Samavartan Samaroh" on the occasion of the completion of the first batch of its one-year diploma of three courses. In this program, IGNCA distributed diploma certificates to 25 students who have passed one-year Diploma in Cultural Informatics, Buddhist Studies, and Preventive Conservation. Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State for Culture (IC) Govt of India himself had attended the program as a chief guest with Dr Karan Singh MP of Rajya Sabha also who was a special guest.
Talking about the program, which was conducted by using modern digital tools, techniques, and methodologies to achieve the intended purposes, Dr. Sachchidanand Joshi, MS of IGNCA said “we started one year postgraduate diploma on Cultural Informatics, Buddhist Studies and Preventive Conservation, in the academic session 2017-18 last year, after the success of the first batch of the year 2017-18, the IGNCA has started two other new one year postgraduate diploma courses from the academic session 2018-19 on Digital Library & Data Management and Manuscript and Paleography. These courses endeavour to place Indian tangible and intangible arts within the integral framework of the cultural system of the upcoming scholarship. The basic aim of these courses is to create arts and culture with all its dimension and information technology to design and develop content exploration system to intensify culture learning and visualisation. This initiative attempts to make our ancient knowledge and achievements accessible on a multimedia platform, thus enabling communication between the ancient and modern knowledge. The theory and practice will nurture trained manpower in the respective fields. The fundamental approach of the Centre in all its courses is both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary.”
Dr. Mahesh Sharma while speaking in this program had himself appreciated the work of IGNCA by saying, "After the joining of Dr Schchidanand Joshi and Shri Ram Bahadur Rai, President of the center, IGNCA making some positive change, these courses are need of today.”
The Culture Minister Dr Sharma further said, “Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has a dream that the young people of our country are not only graduates, they are skilled also, the diploma holder students who are in front of us today, but they are also torchbearers for others young people of our country. The Post Graduate Diploma courses were initiated to upkeep the mandate of IGNCA to document, preserve, conserve and disseminate the Indian Arts and Cultural Heritage and to train competent professionals to work in the specialized field of culture.”
Dr. Mahesh Sharma had also said, "You know that the UNESCO recognized Kumbh Mela as World Heritage Site, This time the Kumbh Mela is going to be very different and wonderful in many ways. This time IGNCA is being given a very important responsibility. In this Kumbh, IGNCA has been given the responsibility of documenting and digitization of the Kumbh Mela so that this tradition of India can be preserved for the future generations."
Merely a week after organizing this very important program, the IGNCA made another major surprising announcement to organize the festival of 'Mute Films', from September 14 to September 16, 2018, a hundred years legacy of films by well-known filmmaker Shyam Benegal.
Shyam Benegal also released a book titled 'Poster Bolte Hain' published by IGNCA. This book focuses on film posters and their history. This is the first book in the Hindi language concentrated on posters and their history. The book is written by Iqbal Rizvi and, presumed by Gautam Chatterjee, former media controller of IGNCA.
MS Dr. Sachchidanand Joshi said, "IGNCA wanted to do some serious work in the field of cinema, in the same effort and this"Poster Bolte Hain" published in Hindi is presented to you. When Ramabahadur Rai president IGNCA came to the center two-and-a-half years ago, at that time, we had decided that 50 percent of the Center's publication will be done in Hindi and today the book on the occasion of Hindi Diwas is a sincere effort. It's a matter of pride for us. In Hindi on the poster and its history, it is not only in the center but also the first book in the country."
Suresh Sharma, the curator of this silent film festival, while speaking about the function, said "Even in the country, the concerts of silent films have been organized once or twice but this is the first time we are organizing a film festival on silent cinema by IGNCA in Delhi. Through this celebration, our effort is to present that generation to the films that were made in that period.Atul Tiwari, said that "Even today, the cinema can be seen in many colors, but the movie mode has been born from silent cinema".
Shyam Benegal, while inaugurating the ‘silent film festival’ said that according to today's cinema, these films cannot be understood, you have to read them. He said that IGNCA deserves big thanks for organizing this type of festival.
President IGNCA, Ram Bahadur Rai said on the occasion of the inauguration that "The beginning of the Indian cinema started from Raja Harishchandra, a film produced by Dada Saheb Phalke, which was based on the search of truth, IGNCA is also moving forward."
After the inauguration of this film festival, three films of Dada Saheb Phalke were shown Raja Harishchandra (1913), Shri Krishna Birth (1917) and Kaliya Mardan (1919). On the next day of the ceremony on 15th September, at 10 am, Himanshu Rai's' The Light of Asia (1925) 'and ' A Throw of Dice '(1929) and Kalipada Das' Jamai Babu (1931) were shown. Today, on the last day of the ceremony, on September 16, at 10 o'clock in the day, the performance of 'The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ (1903), Lanka Dahan (1917), Shearaj (1928) was performed.