Filmmaker, retired IPS quit board of Indira Gandhi arts centre

Both Chandraprakash Dwivedi and K Aravinda Rao were brought on the Board by the NDA government in 2016 after it dissolved the panel under Chinmaya Gharekhan.

Indira Gandhi arts centre, Chandraprakash Dwivedim, Board of Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, indian express

Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts. (Archives)

Filmmaker Chandraprakash Dwivedi and Hyderabad-based (retired) IPS officer K Aravinda Rao have resigned from the 20-member Board of Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts — the top government-funded body of arts. Both Dwivedi and Rao were brought on the Board by the NDA government in 2016 after it dissolved the panel under Chinmaya Gharekhan.

“I have resigned from the Board of IGNCA owing to lack of time. I have my teaching work and other engagements and I want to devote more time to that,” Rao said. A trustee of the Hyderabad-based Advaita Academy, which aims to promote the study of traditional Advaita Vedanta, Rao has authored a book in Sanskrit titled ‘Analysis of jnanam in the Upanishads’. A 1977 batch IPS officer, Rao is former DGP of (undivided) Andhra Pradesh.

Actor-filmmaker Dwivedi, best-known for directing and acting in the 1991 televised serial ‘Chanakya’, said: “I am a filmmaker and writing for films is my core work. I realised that down the line, I was spending more time at the airport, flying to Delhi to attend the meetings, than in writing. So I chose to step down a couple of months ago.” Dwivedi’s latest film Mohalla Assi — featuring Sunny Deol and Ravi Kishan — released earlier this month.

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Both Dwivedi and Rao were a part of the five-member executive committee as well as the 20-member Board of Trustees at the Delhi-based premier arts organisation. Interestingly, the IGNCA website still lists them as members of the executive committee, alongside Chairman Ram Bahadur Rai, as well as the Board of Trustees.

“The members have quit owing to their personal reasons. Since the Ministry (of Culture) appoints the Board members, we will send them a formal request to appoint new members in their place,” IGNCA member-secretary Sachchidanand Joshi told The Indian Express.

Divya A

Divya A reports on travel, tourism, culture and social issues - not necessarily in that order - for The Indian Express. She's been a journalist for over a decade now, working with Khaleej Times and The Times of India, before settling down at Express. Besides writing/ editing news reports, she indulges her pen to write short stories. As Sanskriti Prabha Dutt Fellow for Excellence in Journalism, she is researching on the lives of the children of sex workers in India. ... Read More

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