About the Book

This book covers a spectrum of topics related to culture and development that Dr Kapila Vatsyayan presented on different occasions and platforms. “Culture” has a wide meaning and varied interpretations. The term “development” is equally loaded and complex. Both the terms mean different to different persons. Development sans cultural values and ethos makes no sense. Therefore, interlinking of developmental programmes with cultural and educational programmes is imperative.
The volume thus discusses topics such as underlying concepts of the Indian cultural heritages; cultural configuration; profiling of cultural development; cultural tourism, its scope and impacts; new educational policy and the need to incorporate cultural goals in it; cultural osmosis between India and Indonesia; cultural patterns of India; what is culture from the Indian perspective; challenges in institutionalizing culture; cultural relations between India and Indo-China countries; and the contribution of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for providing a unique identity to Indian culture.
It also deals with Mahatma Gandhi’s blueprint on development and the report of World Commission on Culture and Development; Lenin’s role in making culture available to the Soviet masses and speaks about an ecology of human resources; and contributions of the Orientalists and the present status of Oriental institutes, among some other topics.

About the Author

Kapila Vatsyayan, Chairperson, IIC-International Research Division, India International Centre, New Delhi, and a former Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha), is a well-known and leading scholar of interrelatedness of the arts. She was the founder-director of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts in Delhi, and has been Secretary, Government of India in the Department of Arts and Culture, where she was involved in framing policies with regard to many institutions of higher education and culture in India. She has also been the President, India International Centre; and Member, UNESCO Executive Board. She is the author of over thirty books, including Classical Indian Dance in Literature and the Arts (1968), The Square and the Circle of Indian Arts (1983), and a series of monographs on the Gita Govinda. She has conceived and organized conferences and exhibitions covering a range of concerns in Indian art, education and culture, and is the editor and general editor of several publications. In 2011, she was honoured with the “Padma Vibhushan” by the Government of India.