Bumpy road ahead for Heptulla as ICCR president

A look at the calendar of events for the next few months shows several important events — in the immediate offing is the Festival of India in the Central Asian states, in Tashkent, in mid-September. Heptulla’s travel papers have already been dispatched to the Prime Minister’s Office, and the permission for her to attend the event is awaited. The festival has already been postponed from mid-August to mid-September, ostensibly for reasons coming from Tashkent, say sources.

Then there are two other festivals in Houston, USA and Sao Paolo, Brazil — the first in October and the latter in March, next year. While Houston will be part of ICCR’s bi-lateral cultural exchange programme (CEPs), the Sao Paolo festival has been organised on a much larger scale. Apart from the usual fare coming from routine CEPs, the Sao Paolo festival will go beyond the brief.

For starters, the ICCR, with the help of the National Museum and Culture Ministry, will be mounting an exhibition of India’s ancient bronzes brought from museums all over the country.

So extravagant is the event, it is believed the Prime Minister himself will innaugurate the event apart from a ministerial delegation. Heptulla will have to wait and see if she is included in the government entourage.

There is the critical task of filling up posts in ICCR institutions abroad — beginning with the high profile Maulana Azad Institute in Cairo, Egypt. The prestigious institute, named after Heptulla’s grandfather, has not had a head ever since the erstwhile BJP-led NDA government’s appointee, former journalist Kanchan Gupta, resigned the day the latter was voted out of power.