RSS set to launch India's own 'Nobel Prize' after Culture Ministry nod

New Delhi: The cultural unit of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is all set to introduce awards in the fields of Peace, Human Rights, Literature, Visual and Performing Arts, Science, Education and others, calling it India’s own Nobel Prize.

According to a report in DNA, the Ministry of Culture has given the go ahead to the RSS to institute ‘Naimishya Samman’, and a grand extravaganza in the form of ‘Rashtriya Sanskriti Mahotsava’, will be held in Varanasi next month, to kick start the first edition of the awards.

The jury for it will comprise of prominent International and Indian artists like Sonal Mansingh, said the report.

The budget for the extravaganza has been set at a whooping Rs 220 crore, out of which around Rs 70 crore have been kept for the awards and the rest for the event.

The Rashtriya Sanskriti Mahotsava, an initiative of the Ministry of Culture is currently going on in the national capital and will also be held in Bengaluru and Kashmir.

However, the Mahotsava in Varanasi will be different as it will be attended by an assembly of scholars and artists from all over India.

The cultural unit of RSS, Sanskar Bharti, is behind the idea of Naimishya Samman, said the report. "The idea was proposed to the Ministry of Culture by us. We thought that Indians working in the field of arts, culture and literature should also get their due. Why should the great Indian writers wait to win a Nobel Prize, we should honor them with our own award that is equally respectable," theatre and cultural coordinator for Sanskar Bharti, Shailesh Shrivastava was quoted as saying by DNA.

The awards will be presented annually, starting in November this year.