New Delhi, April 11: An high-level committee formed to review the working of Culture Ministry’s seven zonal centers coming today said it is “anguished” and “disturbed” at the serious departure of the centers from its original objectives and functions.
The review committee, headed by Rajya Sabha MP Mani Shankar Aiyar, in its recommendations submitted today to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Culture Minister Kumar Selja, observed that the ZCCs instead of acting as “centrifugal forces of disseminating culture”, ended up being “centripetal, drawing into their venues the cultures of the region”.
The Government of India, under the prime ministership of late Rajiv Gandhi, in 1885 had set up seven zonal cultural centers in different parts of the country with an objective to preserve, promote, and disseminate the plurality of India’s culture and traditional arts to all states.
“The idea was to create an emotional unity in the country.
-Agencies