Bengal Association to hold year-long diamond jubilee celebrations

Bengal Association has been working to promote Indian cultural literary and linguistic visage with equal esteem and respect towards all language speaking residents; living, surrounding or intermingling with them. To commemorate the existence of the association and celebrate its diamond jubilee, year-long festivities will be held in Delhi and NCR.

Bengal Association was initiated by great visionary, Dr. B C Roy, Chief Minister of West Bengal in 1958. The foundation stone of the Muktadhara Banga Sanskriti Bhawan was laid by Jyoti Basu, the then Chief Minister of West Bengal. Aruna Asaf Ali, Professor Humayun Kabir, the then Chief Justice Sudhir Ranjan Das and others were the members of the first executive committee of Bengal Association. Over the years, illustrious people like Professor Humayun Kabir, Dr. Triguna Sen, Professor DP Chattopadhyay, Justice AC Gupta, Pranab Mukherjee, former President of India, Somnath Chatterjee, the then Lok Sabha Speaker, DP Mukherjee adorned the post of President of the Association.

Diamond jubilee celebration initiated with an evening of classical music on December 16, at Muktadhara, New Delhi. The event was inaugurated by eminent Kathak exponent, Shovana Narayan. The programme included light classical music by eminent singer lndra Mukherjee, shankar guitar by Dr Kamala Shankar and vocal recital by Pandit Vidyadhar Vyas.

Bengal Association proposes to organise 'Yubo Natyo Utsatt' (Youth Theatre Festival)in Bangla, Hindi, English, and other languages on January 21, 2018, at Muktadhara, New Delhi. The aim is to encourage and provide stage to upcoming generations for their productions.

The Association will be organising '17th Bangla Boi Mela' (Book Fair) and 'Banga Sanskriti Utsab' in March 2018. The book fair, popular amongst the populace of Delhi/ NCR attracts book lovers from every walk of life. The fair is the third largest in India, after Kolkata and Agartala (Tripura).

It also proposes to organise series of lectures by eminent personalities such as Dr Karan Singh, Dr Bibek Debroy, MJ Akbar, Chief Swami of Secretary Rama Krishna Ashram, and many others.

During April and May, a camp would be organized comprising of a three-day workshop, followed by a three-day exhibition of the works by some young artists and a day-long seminar towards the end.

Bengal Association will also conduct various cultural functions throughout the year with eminent exponents and new emerging talents. Also, one could witness exhibitions of handicrafts and handloom products by artisans of West Bengal and North Eastern states.

The Association proposes to organise football match, a half-marathon for school children of Delhi-NCR and other sports events as well.

Apart from that, felicitation of prominent Bengali personalities of Delhi /NCR from various fields is proposed. Classical and award-winning Bangla cinemas will be screened and a Bangla food festival will be held to make the new generation – living away from Bengal – familiar with the Bangla cine work and traditional cuisines, respectively.