Fellowship to 4 Women from Jharkhand including Neelam Nirad | 28 Jul 2023

Why in News?

On July 27, 2023, according to the information received from the media, four cultural workers of Jharkhand, including Jadopatiya painter Neelam Nirad, received the Fellowship Award for the year 2020-21 from the Ministry of Culture, Government of India.

Key Points:

• Three cultural workers from Jharkhand, including Jadopatiya painter Neelam Nirad, have received the Senior Fellowship Award for the year 2020-21, while an artist from the state has been selected for the Junior Fellowship Award for the same year.
• It is a great coincidence that all the four names from Jharkhand who have been selected for the Senior and Junior Fellowship Awards for this year are women.
• Dumka's Neelam Nirad has been selected for tribal painting, Ranchi's Seema Devi for folk songs and Ranchi's Monita Sinha for theatre and Akanksha Priyadshirni of Bokaro for the junior fellowship award for Chhau dance.
• This fellowship award is given to distinguished art-seekers doing excellent work in the field of culture, which is selected at the national level. This fellowship is available for two years, which has a provision for an extension of six months as per the scheme.
• Neelam Nirad is an eminent artist of tribal Jadopatiya painting. His works have been appreciated in national painting exhibitions. She has also been honoured.
• Jadopatiya's painting is related to the Santhal tribe. Pictures of this style are made on vertical scrolls of paper and cloth. Each panel has a different subject and there are 16 to 32 pictures on one panel. These are made with natural colours and the traditional artist sings a song while showing it, describing the story of the paintings.
• Neelam Neerad is furthering this painting style by learning from its hereditary artists and has also done many experiments in it.