LAHORE: The Provincial Cultural Activities Review Committee has taken some key decisions in its recent meeting on the recommendation of different cultural institutions of the province, sources told Dawn.

Sources said a meeting, headed by the additional secretary for information and culture, decided to improve the working and programming of different cultural institutions. Representatives of various cultural institutions gave an update on their upcoming cultural ventures.

The meeting was attended by the representatives of the Bazm-i-Iqbal Lahore, Board for Advancement of Literature, Lahore Arts Council, Punjab Institute of Language, Art and Culture, Punjab Council of Arts, Bab-i-Pakistan Foundation and Lyallpur Museum of Faisalabad.

The committee is tasked with planning and reviewing cultural, literary activities of the autonomous bodies of the Information and Culture Department besides monitoring the implementation of Punjab Cultural policy.

Actor Noorul Hassan, a co-opted member of the committee, proposed the revival of Talent Hunt Programme both in acting and music with a special focus on calligraphy. Another co-opted member proposed the designing of special cultural souvenirs for foreign dignitaries visiting different cultural institutions such as LAC, PILAC and other cultural bodies.

Tehseen Firaqi from Bazm-i-Iqbal highlighted the need to revive the literary conference which used to take place at Alhamra, The Mall, however it got discontinued after 2015.

Abbas Tabish, director of the Majlis Taraqi-i-Adab, emphasised on making efforts to find talent in all genres of art from Cholistan through Bahawalpur Arts council. The meeting took some key decisions in connection with upcoming programming of various cultural institutions.

It was decided that Bazm-i-Iqbal in collaboration with Lahore Arts Council will spread the message of Iqbal amongst the students. It was also decided in the meeting that though Bazm-i-Iqbal was doing good nevertheless it has issues with its outreach, to further improve its outreach it will use social media platforms.

The meeting also decided that the Punjab Institute of Language, Art and Culture will organise a mega event wherein delegates from all federating units and regions of Pakistan will be invited to participate for creating inter provincial harmony as per the provisions of Pilac Act.

The Punjab Council of Arts will revive its theatre festival in which theatrical teams from all districts used to participate; however it got discontinued some years ago. The council, it was decided, will also revive its Talent Hunt o bring out talent from the grass root level in various fields of art and culture.

Lahore Arts Council Director Muhammad Asim Chauhdry told the meeting that the Lahore Arts Council will revive Alhamra Literary Conference and would revive Alhamra Unplugged, a music recording studio used to function under the Lahore Arts Council. The council will also widen its scope in Talent Hunt Programmes by including other fields of art and culture other than music.

Published in Dawn, September 11th, 2023