In
the year of commemoration of the birth centenary of Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay,
who hailed from Mathura district in Uttar Pradesh, the Ministry of Culture,
Government of India is launching the implementation of the ‘‘National Mission
on Cultural Mapping of India’ at Goverdhan Block, Mathura District, Uttar
Pradesh in a day long, Block level mega talent hunt programme (Sanskritik
Pratibha Khoj Samaroh) on 17th June, 2017 from 10 am to 5 pm at Radheshyam
Sewa Sadan (in front of Gaudiya Math), Radha Kund Road, Gowardhan. The
programme will be inaugurated by the Minister of State (Independent charge) for
Culture & Tourism Dr. Mahesh Sharma, in the august presence of the Ministers
of Uttar Pradesh having their constituency in Mathura District, MP and MLAs of
Mathura District, Ministry’s Senior officials and various renowned artists
including Padma, Sangeet Natak Akademi and State Awardees. This Mission is part
of the ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’ umbrella.
Around
1-2 thousand artists are expected to take part in this Block level event where artists
can also register themselves following which a registration certificate/slip/code
will be provided to all the artists who register. A stage will be provided to
the registered artists for performance and displaying their talent. A panel of renowned
artists has also been invited for judging the participants in different art
forms. Registration can also be done directly on the portal
culturalmappingofindia.nic.in. For those artists who, for some reason, are not
able to register themselves and their art forms, enumeration teams have been
sent to all the 47 villages of Gowardhan Block for geo mapping of artists and
their art forms. Any person who claims to be an artist can register at the
initial level.
Paving
the way for the ‘Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat’ programme led by the Hon’ble
Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, the mission aims at converting the vast and
widespread cultural canvas of India into an objective cultural map, designing a
mechanism to fulfil the aspirations of the whole artist community of the nation
and preserving the rich cultural heritage of this country in the form of a
cultural repository of artists and art forms.
This
Mission encompasses data mapping, demography building formalising the processes
and bringing all the cultural activities under one web based umbrella for
better results. The Mission also seeks to open a direct channel of
communication of artists with the Government and peer to peer communication
among artists for talent honing and handholding of each other.
With
a vision that no cultural talent or heritage should remain unattended and if it
is talent, it should be nurtured and if it is a heritage, it should be
conserved and used as an icon to learn from the past, and also to propagate our
cultural talent across all boundaries, the Ministry has planned to hold talent
hunt competitions with various rounds from Block level to National level. The
scheme is set to cover all the Blocks of the Country, involving a total of 6.40
Lakh villages over the span of next 3 years.
The
Ministry is eying to launch massive cultural awareness campaigns so that no
artist is left behind. The Artist/Organisations also may register online at www.culturalmapping.nic.in. The
Cultural Mapping of India portal will serve as a repository/consolidated
database of information about cultural assets and resources i.e. a cultural
inventory at one place for essential planning, sustainable economic development
and for preserving the scattered and near extinct art forms.
Immediately
after this event in Mathura district, the Ministry of Culture will be
organising similar Block level events in other States too so as to kick start
the process of scaling up the efforts to cover all the Blocks of the Country.
The current round includes Shimoga Block in Shimoga District, Karnataka, Thanesar
Block in Kurukshetra District, Haryana, Chauri – Chaura Block in Gorakhpur
District in Uttar Pradesh & Saraikela Block in Saraikela - Kharsawan
District in Jharkhand.
*****
Sanjay
Kumar/jk/Culture/15.06.2017