New Delhi, Aug 13: In the wake of ailing Shehnai maestro Ustad Bismillah Khan's appeal for financial help, Sarod wizard Ustad Amjad Ali Khan today asked the Centre to set up a 'corpus fund' for helping artists in times of distress. "There is an urgent need of a mechanism to address concerns of artists and musicians who are facing severe problems. The ministry of culture should start a corpus fund for the emergency of these creative people," Khan told reporters. Referring to the nation-wide media attention generated by Bismillah Khan's plea, Khan said "some artists like Khan Saab get media attention but that is not the case with many small-time artists." Pointing out that "there is lack of proper outlets for Indian classical music," he said "we need more sponsors and promotors for organising concerts." "In the name of promotion, crores of rupees are given to various institutions but nobody knows where this money goes," he said.
"Corporate majors like Coca Cola and Pepsi were only interested in sponsoring pop concerts and fashion shows, he said and asked the big business houses to contribute to the corpus fund.
Coming down heavily on the government for not including any artist in the Indian delegation of parliamentarians and journalists which is currently visiting Pakistan, he said "politicians and others alone cannot bring peace, they should have included one artist from every field in the team. Only musicians can bring the world together."
Bureau Report