This year, for the first time ever, 6 students at the University of Pune's (UoP) Lalit Kala Kendra have bagged the prestigious fellowship given by the Ministry of Culture.
The students were selected from among 4,000 from across the country after a special audition that was held in Bhopal recently.
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The students are set to receive a Rs 5,000 monthly stipend for the next two and a half years. “This year ten students from our institute applied for the fellowship for various performing art forms like dance, theatre and music, and I am proud that for the first time as many as six students have been selected for the fellowship. The auditions were held at Bhopal on March 1,” said Dr Shubhangi Bahulikar, HoD at Lalit Kala Kendra.
The students who will receive the scholarship are Leeladhar Chakradev, Harish Kulkarni, Nivedita Joshi, Latesh Pimpalghare, Ameera Patankar and Anand Patil.
“It is not that the students just applied and have been selected. Those who applied had to perform their respective discipline at a special workshop arranged by the Ministry of Culture at Bhopal,” added Bahulikar.
Nivedita Joshi, who recently completed an MA in Music from the institute, said, “Getting selected for a national-level scholarship is really motivating. It has boosted my confidence a lot. My native place is Dhule, where I started my career in classical music under the guidance of my guru (late) Ashok Kulkarni. The HoD and my guru Anuradha Kuber and Hemant Pendse have supported me a lot.”
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