Dr. Kalyan Kumar Chakravarty Takes Charge as Member Secretary, IGNCA

 

Dr. Kalyan Kumar Chakravarty has become the Member Secretary of IGNCA.  A senior IAS officer of the rank of Secretary, Government of India, Dr. Chakravarty is well known for his extensive field work and published work on art history, rock art, archaeology, anthropology, community knowledge systems, ecological issues, museum movement, and other areas of cultural studies.

As Director, Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangralaya, Bhopal, form 1994-2000, he introduced a new museum concept in the country by taking the museum out to the doors of remote forest and hill-based communities and by gearing it to the replenishment of their skills and technologies.

He has a first class first from Kolkata University in Hisotry, a Master’s degree in Public Administration and a Ph.D. in Art History from Harvard University, U.S.A.  He has held the charge of Culture, Archaeology and museums with various other charges of education, science and technology, forest environment and tourism in the States of Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh.

He held the charge of Additional Chief Secretary and Chief Election Officer in the Govt. of Chattisgarh before assuming this charge, and took a significant initiative for setting up Purkhauti Muktangan, a heritage precinct in 150 acres in Raipur.  He was lauded by the earlier CEC, Mr. Lyngdoh for handling the Chattisgarh assembly elections with complete impartiality and rectitude in the face of heavy odds.

Dr. Chakravarty has done seminal work in linking natural and human resource management strategies of communities with their development, and in rejuvenating their local knowledge systems in sacred groves, water management, conservation of medicinal and trophic diversity.

He has been working for recollecting and revitalizing life enhancing traditions for recontextualizing cultural texts, for revitalizing cultural habits of local communities, and, for building up defenses against technification and homogenization of such habitats.