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regular-article-logo Saturday, 12 October 2024

Six-member committee set up by Visva-Bharati finalises the Bengali draft for plaque

Bidyut Chakrabarty installed two marble plaques, without name of Rabindranath Tagore, founder of both Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati, on campus on September 17

Snehamoy Chakraborty Calcutta Published 19.11.23, 10:23 AM
One of the plaques without Rabindranath Tagore's name on the campus of Visva-Bharati

One of the plaques without Rabindranath Tagore's name on the campus of Visva-Bharati File picture

The six-member committee set up by Visva-Bharati finalised the Bengali draft on Saturday and proposed "minor" changes to the English and Hindi texts sent by the Union ministry of education last Tuesday for inscription on plaques to replace the controversial ones installed by former vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty to mark the Unesco heritage tag on Santiniketan.

"We finalised the Bengali draft and suggested minor modifications to the English and Hindi versions. Committee chairman Amal Pal sent the final content to our acting VC Sanjoy Kumar Mallik for his approval," said Nilanjan Bandyopadhyay, special officer of Rabindra Bhavana.

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Bandyopadhyay is the secretary of the six-member panel that the varsity set up on Thursday to draft the Bengali version of the text.

A source said Mallik was likely to send all three texts to the ministry again to get its final nod before inscribing those on the plaques to avoid any more controversy.

Chakrabarty installed two marble plaques, without the name of Rabindranath Tagore, the founder of both Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati, on the campus on September 17. The plaques only mentioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the central varsity chancellor and Chakrabarty. The two plaques, installed in front of Rabindra Bhavana and Upasana Griha, sparked a controversy that spread beyond Bengal's borders.

"We are very careful with the plaques as they became the subject of a nationwide controversy. That is why the interim VC is likely to take the final call from the ministry," an official said.

A source said the panel also suggested the order of languages on the new plaques, which will have the Unesco logo on the left, the national emblem at the centre and Visva-Bharati logo on the right.

"We suggested the Bengali version be on top, followed by English and Hindi," said a source.

The new plaques would be bigger than the controversial ones as they would accommodate around 600 words, 200 each in Bengali, Hindi and English.

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