Viswa Bharati loses rights on Tagore works

asansol: on tuesday, when the whole world celebrates new year, the viswa bharati university will mourn the loss of copyright on rabindranath tagore's works. in the past six months, viswa bharati university vice chancellor sujit kumar basu has run from pillar to post to renew the copyright but it seems in vain. prime minister atal behari vajpayee, during his maiden visit as chancellor to santiniketan on december 15, was expected to anounce the centre would grant the extension.but though the prime minister had assured the vc in new delhi that he will look into the matter, he has remained silent so far. after the death of the author, copyright on his works exists for 50 years. tagore died in 1941. in 1991 the centre extended the copyright on tagore's works, which the viswa bharati university has, by ten years. in a last ditch effort, the university had tried to get tagore the status of a national heritage author. however, another group argued that the university had not published all of tagore's works yet. viswa bharati has published 31 editions of tagore's works over 60 years.