Unesco to celebrate Tagore birth anniversary

Praising Tagore’s works as “a rare blend of literary excellence with humanistic value,” Unesco has said that it will establish prizes and medals and organise seminars and conferences to spread awareness on Tagore’s works across the globe.

An HRD official said on Tuesday that the Unesco Executive Board has approved a proposal given by India to celebrate Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary. “This is a great honour for the nation,” the official said. “The Unesco has accepted our proposal to celebrate Tagore's birth anniversary.”

Alongwith Tagore, the UN agency will also celebrate 100th birth anniversary of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, and also the centenary of Aime Cesaire, the Afro-Martinican litterateur. The agency will also promote works by the literary personalities.

In 2010-2011, Unesco will also associate itself with the  100th anniversary of the first independent Afghan periodical (Seraj-ul-akhbar) by Mahmud Tarzi and the bicentennials of Belarusian painter Ivan Khrutsky and Bulgarian Renaissance artist Zachari Zographe.
In a write-up on the celebrations, Unesco has mentioned that the life and works of Tagore, Neruda and Cesaire will build up a "conception of the universal reconciled with the particular now that peace is being jeopardised nationally, regionally and internationally by identity and spiritual tension.”

Specific proposals for celebrations were moved by India, Argentina, Benin, Chile, Democratic the Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, South Africa, Togo, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia, who have asked other countries to publish works of the authors in their languages.

Besides a large collection of poetry, Tagore (1861-1941) had also contributed to Indian philosophy, art, drama and novel. He had won the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature.