In the valedictory programme of the North-East Festival in Guwahati, 17 Visual artists including seven from Tripura nominated by Lalit Kala Akademi, had been felicitated at Guwahati on Wednesday.
Dignitaries present in the concluding programme were President of India Ramnath Kovind, Union Minister of Culture G. Kishan Reddy, Union Minister of Ports, Shipping & Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal, Union Minister of Law & Justice Kiren Rijiju, Chief Minister of Tripura Biplab Kumar Deb, Chief Ministers of other Northeastern states and MoS for Social Justice & Empowerment Pratima Bhowmik.
Seven among 17 Visual artists are from Tripura. They are namely- Shanta Deb, Debjit Rudrapal, Abhijit Majumdar, Trisha Ghosh, Raju Debnath, Rakhi Das and Deepika Das. Union Minister of Culture G. Kishan Reddy felicitated them in the programme. It is to be noted that Lalit Kala Akademi provides scholarships to young and budding artists for sculpting, painting, ceramic, graphics, art curation and management.
15 among 17 Visual artists were nominated to work for Lalit Kala Akademi, Agartala Centre. The remaining two will be working for Kolkata based regional centre. Each of them will be given a monthly scholarship of 20 thousand rupees. Earlier, the amount of the scholarship was 10 thousand rupees. Under this scheme, those of age 21 to 35 may apply for it. It is to be noted that the number of scholarship candidates has increased from 40 to 55.
It is to be noted that former Union Minister of Education Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad on August 5, 1954, inaugurated Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi for the development of Visual Art. Apart from the headquarters in Delhi, the Akademi has its regional centres in Lucknow, Bhubaneshwar, Chennai, Kolkata and Agartala. The regional centre in Agartala started in December 2020 and is now providing facilities for scholarship, research, studio etc. and encourages artists of the Northeast in their respective fields.