Rajyotsava awards selection may be outsourced

BANGALORE: Swamped by pressure from aspirants for the prestigious Rajyotsava awards, Karnataka’s coalition government might duck it by opting for the latest fad: outsourcing!
Already reeling under criticism for not appointing a Kannada and culture minister or a committee to identify awardees, the government now wants to “totally avoid" the process.
So, the solution mooted by a senior minister is: let us outsource, by setting up a committee of top litterateurs and artistes to draw up the list of awardees.
“We want to limit the list of awardees to around 50, which will be difficult, given the number of aspirants. So we plan to ask the litterateurs, appoint one of them as chairperson of the awards committee and leave the hard decisions on whom to award this year, to them!" a senior minister told The Times of India.
From the last five years, it is the culture minister who has headed this advisory committee on awards. Twice earlier, litterateurs K. Shivaram Karanth and K.V. Subbanna headed the committees, but the practice ran into rough weather when Subbanna went to the court contending that the government had not awarded those recommended by his panel.
Now, in the absence of a culture minister, the general impression was that revenue minister M.P. Prakash — known for his culture credentials — would head the awards committee. But sources said Prakash, on return from the Bidar campaign, would approach top culture figures like U.R. Ananthamurthy, Girish Karnad, Giraddi Govindaraj and others for the panel.
There is, however, some amount of confusion, as chief minister N. Dharam Singh has signed an order stating that a cabinet minister will head the selection committee. But this has been sent back to Singh as the minister concerned has not been named.
There is also a doubt that the chief minister, immediately after the Bidar byelection, might appoint a culture minister to head the panel. To be on the safe side, the Kannada and culture directorate itself has prepared a probables list, which will be perused by the awards committee.
Art circles are also getting rattled about the nearly-four month delay in setting up of five academies and the Kannada Book Authority, which has brought art administration to a near stand-still.
Tremendous lobbying is on for these posts, which will finally be decided not just on merit, but on political affiliations, caste, community and region that the aspirants belong to.