India: Kantilal Bhuria inaugurates

The Minister of Tribal Affairs, Shri Kantilal Bhuria inaugurated "Prakriti", National Festival of Tribal Dances & Music here today. The festival has been organized by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture from 5th to 7th February, 2010 in New Delhi at Dilli Haat.

Prakriti – the integrated event, is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Tribal Co-operative Marketing Development Federatioon of India Limited (TRIFED) and the Ministry of Culture to present tribal art and culture in a holistic manner. Ministry of Culture brings in performing tribal troupes from different parts of the country to make the event a unique blend of tribal art and culture.

Tribal Dances being presented in Prakriti give glimpses of various art forms. These will include some of the well-known tribal dances like Karma Dance, Uttar Pradesh; Gendi Dance, Chhattisgarh; Mangalamkali Dance, Kerala; Korku Dance, Madhya Pradesh; Pangwali Dance, Himachal Pradesh; Gavari, Rajasthan; Gagan-Ngai Dance, Nagaland and others .

An exhibition of selected photographs of the 3rd level thematic Photo contest 2009 on ‘Tribal Portraits’ was also held for which the awards were distributed to the Winners of the competition later.

Shri Abhijit Bhattacharyya of Kolkata has bagged the First prize in the Third National Level Photo Contest for his picture “Mokree” on a particular theme “Tribal Portrait” organized jointly by Ministry of Tribal Affairs and the Photo Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The Second prize went to Shri Writwik Chakraborty of Nadia of West Bengal for his picture title “Old Age” and the third prize went to Shri K. Nageswara Rao of Guntur, Andhra Pradesh for his picture titled “Thinking for Bright Future”. The Commendation award went to Shri Partha Pratim Saha, Shri Sandipan Majumdar, Shri Shyamal Das, Shri Nimai Chandra Ghosh, Shri Somenath Mukhopadhyay, Shri Sugato Mukherjee, Shri Amit Basu of Kolkata, Shri Vanam Paparao, Shri Guntaka Gopala Reddy of Andhra Pradesh. Shri G. Nagasrinivasu of Trivandrum has been conferred with a Special Commendation Award as Tribal Photographer for his picture “Bonda Tribal Gandma”.

The First prize includes Rs. 25,000/- as well as a memento and a citation, the Second prize of Rs. 15,000/- and the third prize Rs. 10,000/- and Commendation award of Rs. 2,000/- with a memento and a citation. The Jury could not find suitable photograph for giving the Special Talent Award for the best Tribal photographer as the Jury did not find such picture for the award. However, a Commendation award was given to one Tribal Photographer. A total number of 146 photographers from 20 states sent 927 photographs which includes Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tamilnadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

A high level Jury comprising of Shri G.B. Mukherji, Secretary, Tribal Affairs, himself a noted photographer along with an eminent tribal photographer Shri Michael Shylla from Meghalaya selected the13 award winning photographs and 88 photographs for exhibition.


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