Shas­tri Boodan

The Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) has re­ceived a grant of $1 mil­lion for Di­vali Na­gar cel­e­bra­tions. The an­nounce­ment was made on Wednes­day night by Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters dur­ing his ad­dress at the open­ing of the 24th an­nu­al Di­vali Na­gar in Ch­agua­nas. Pe­ters said the mon­ey would be com­ing from his min­istry.

He con­grat­u­lat­ed the NCIC for the role it played in pro­mot­ing In­di­an cul­ture and ex­tend­ed Di­vali greet­ings to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. Head of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, De­ok­ien­anan Shar­ma, in thank­ing the Gov­ern­ment said the mon­ey was re­ceived on Wednes­day. "At last the worth of Di­vali Na­gar has been recog­nised, where the en­list­ment of our so­ci­ety and par­tic­u­lar­ly our youth through whole­some cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties, has been our watch­word,"he added.

Shar­ma said the ac­cep­tance of mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism as a pol­i­cy of the Gov­ern­ment had at last been ac­cept­ed. The NCIC al­so paid trib­ute to For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan, who in his ad­dress said the NCIC played an in­stru­men­tal role in pre­serv­ing the "cul­tur­al soul" of the In­do-Trinida­di­an pop­u­la­tion in a west­ern-dom­i­nat­ed so­ci­ety "where suc­cess and ac­cep­tance de­pend on join­ing the per­ceived dom­i­nant cul­ture."