Wait…no career cultural artistes from Nagaland?

It could be out of ignorance or just simply apathy but there has been no application for a central cultural scholarship scheme from artistes in Nagaland. Meanwhile Assam and Manipur, two of the northeastern region’s top hotspots of cultural artistry are making hay while the sun shines.

During 2013-2014, there were six from Nagaland who applied. But since then, there has yet to be any. Assam and Manipur, true to their reputation as a cultural hotspot, are ahead of the northeast states with more than 100 applications between the two.

On July 25, Dr. Mahesh Sharma, the minister of state (in-charge) for Tourism and Culture told the Lok Sabha that the government was implementing a scheme of scholarships for young artistes in different cultural fields. Up to 400 scholarships are given every year to young artistes in the age group of 18-25 year for advanced training in the field of Indian classical music, Indian classical dance, theatre, mime, visual art, folk, traditional and indigenous art and light classical music, the minister said.

Each selected artistes are being granted a scholarship of Rs. 5, 000 per month for a period of two years.

The scheme for the current year i.e., 2016-2017 has not been advertised, the minister stated.

“For wider publicity the scheme is advertised in all the leading newspapers throughout India including employment news. The scheme is also advertised on the website of the ministry.”

The number of applications received during the last three years from the north east states:

Sl No	State	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16
1	Arunachal Pradesh	Nil	Nil	01
2	Assam	175	30	117
3	Manipur	156	16	51
4	Meghalaya	5	Nil	01
5	Mizoram	1	Nil	Nil
6	Nagaland	6	Nil	Nil
7	Sikkim	9	Nil	Nil
8	Tripura	45	02	14

(Al Ngullie, July 27, 2016; Eastern Mirror) 

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