NEW DELHI: With an eye on clearing cultural bodies of Congress-appointed czars and removing Nehruvian vestiges, the NDA government has reconstituted the management of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) here.
Veteran Hindi journalist Ram Bahadur Rai has been made its head replacing former diplomat Chinmaya Gharekhan.
Apart from Rai, other notable additions in the body include dancer Sonal Mansingh, adman and lyricist Prasoon Joshi, dancer Padma Subrahmanyam, artist Vasudeo Kamath, film director Chandraprakash Dwivedi, Khadi Village Industries Commission ex-chairman Mahesh Chandra Sharma.
Also part of the reconstituted board are M Seshan (Tamil-Hindi scholar), Rati Vinay Jha (ex-IAS officer, NIFT founder), Nirmala Sharma (art historian), Saryu Doshi. She was chairman of the Lalit Kala Akademi during Vajpayee’s regime. Others include Harsh Neotia,
D P Sinha, Viraj Yagnik, Nitin Desai, K Arvinda Rao (former IPS), Bharat Gupta. Padma Subrahmanyam is the only member in the outgoing Board of Trustees who has been retained.
Outgoing IGNCA board president Gharekhan sought to downplay the reconstitution move saying “there is no mystery” in it as he noted that “all successive” governments have done the same in the past.
Second institution to face revamp
The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts is considered a Congress legacy as it was set up in 1987 when Rajiv Gandhi was PM. After Nehru Memorial Society, it is the second body which now has people considered close to the ruling dispensation.