Nehru Trust Awards

Nehru Trust Awards

The Trust aims to achieve its mission by making it possible for scholars and professionals from India and the UK to develop and share skills relevant to these subjects and to gain access to Indian cultural resources both in India and in the UK.

The Trust’s primary activity is an annual awards programme for individual scholars and museum professionals from both countries in order to enable them to study, carry out research or undertake training in both India and the UK. The awards programme is announced each autumn; awards are made in late March and must be taken up within the subsequent year (1 April to 31 March).

The Trust also administers grants on behalf of the V&A Jain Art Fund, and works in collaboration with the Charles Wallace India Trust with whom it offers an annual joint UK Visiting Fellowship.

 

Laksmi Narayan

Indian textiles & Empire: John Forbes Watson

Study the Forbes Watson collection and related material at the V&A Museum, London

Dr S D Trivedi

Indian medieval sculpture

To carry out a critical study of Indian medieval sculpture in UK museums, and to study the latest techniques of display

Mannu Gounder Gandhi

Study of  South Indian sculpture in UK museum collections.

I visited many museums in the UK during my stay there, and both documented South Indian sculptures and bronzes and display methods. I subsequently developed display methods for the Government Museums at Vellore and Cuddalore. Since then I have received a fellowship awarded by the Institute for Social Science and Research at Vellore. I delivered about 100 lectures in the period between 1994 and 2001 to college and school students, Rotary and other clubs, and groups of visitors to the Vellore museum.

Dr Maruti Nandan Tiwari

Study of Jaina sculptures and paintings in UK Museums

Several new ideas and materials which emerged through the research in the UK collections helped me in my future researches. The award widened my knowledge and mental horizons.

Dr Pratipal Bhatia

Indo-Sasanian coins

For costs of materials & photographs relating to her study of Indo-Sasanian coins in UK collections

Sudhir Kumar

A study of Madhubani paintings

Richa Modawel

A study of traditional cloth paintings of Rajasthan

Soumhya Venkatesan

To study the mat and silk weaving traditions of Pattamadai village and Kanchipuram town in Tamil Nadu

I would like to thank the Trustees for their timely and generous awards. In the year following my Cambridge M Phil I returned to India  and was given a second grant to conduct ethnographic research among weaving communities. This work formed  a pre-PhD pilot study and I returned to Cambridge in 1996 to commence work on my PhD entitled  "Crafting discourse: mat weaving in Pattamadai, South India". I was awarded the PhD in 2002.

Dr K Rajan

A study of the traditional bead-making industry of Periya district of Tamil Nadu

The grant served as seed money to carry out the preliminary studies which helped to take up the major work in the selected field. For instance the feasibility study helped to get major research project funding from the Indian National Science Academy.

Anupam K Sah

A survey of wall paintings conservation in Dungarpur, Rajasthan, and other sites

This was the first award that came my way when I was embarking on a professional career in India. I was full of hope and a vision of all I could do for art conservation in India and the award helped me take my first step in that direction without having to wait or lose steam. It reinforced my confidence in myself and in my belief that if there is a worthy idea and sincere effort then there are people to support you.

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