Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State (Independent charge) for Culture & Tourism launched 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) yesterday. Shri Srikant Sharma, Energy Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Ministry’s Senior officials and various renowned artists including Padma, Sangeet Natak Akademi and State Awardees were present. This Mission is part of the ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’ umbrella. Ministry of Culture launched it in the year of commemoration of the birth centenary of Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay, who hailed from Mathura.
Artists in large number participated in this Block level event where they also registered themselves following which a registration certificate/slip/code was provided to all the artists who registered. A stage was provided to the registered artists for performance and displaying their talent. A panel of renowned artists were invited for judging the participants in different art forms. Registration was directly on the portal culturalmappingofindia.nic.in. For those artists who, for some reason, could not register themselves and their art forms, enumeration teams had been sent to all the 47 villages of Goverdhan Block for geo mapping of artists and their art forms. Any person who claims to be an artist can register at the initial level.
Dr. Mahesh Sharma said that under the ‘Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat’ programme 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.
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.
The Ministry of Culture 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.
