All set for Tagore's 150th birth anniversary celebrations

The programme at Santiniketan will begin early morning with students and teachers of Visva-Bharati going in a procession known as 'baitalik', singing his songs.

Tagore's ancestral house Jorasanko mansion, where the poet was born and later died in 1941, has been decorated with flowers. Renowed exponents of Rabindrasangeet will perform at a cultural programme at the Rabindra Sadan here.

A special train, 'Sanskriti Express', will be launched tomorrow to showcase his life and work across the country. The train will be flagged off by Railway minister Mamata Banerjee from Howrah station.

Rabindra-Bharati University, founded in 1961 on Tagore's centenary year, has started a Rs 15 crore project of renovating Tagore's ancestral home at Jorasanko.

The university also has a plan to publish annotated volumes of Tagore's works on education, aesthetics and village reconstruction. It also proposed to open a new campus at Siliguri for fine arts and visual arts.

The Calcutta University and Jadavpore University are also all set to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of India first Nobel laureate. Calcutta University Vice-Chancellor Suranjan Das said Tagore was associated with the varsity in various capacities and also gave advice on running it. The university, he said, has drawn up a year-long programme to celebrate his 150th birth anniversary.

Jadavpur University officials said it has decided to set up a cultural institute to preserve Tagore's works, besides setting up a state-of-the art arena theatre for dramas, dance-dramas and music.

A Tagore film festival was also on the cards.

St Xaviers college will also pay homage to Tagore, who was a student of the school's preparatory entrance standard in 1875.