Kalyan Kumar Chakravarty

Dr. Kalyan Kumar Chakravarty, IAS (retired in the rank of Secretary, Govt. of India), M.A. (Kolkata), M.P.A. (Harvard), Ph.D., Fine Arts (Harvard), is President, People's Council of Education, Allahabad and Distinguished Professor, Centre for Knowledge Societies, Centurion University of Technology and Management, Paralakhemundi, Odisha. Dr. Chakravarty has been Chairman, Lalit Kala Akademi; Director General, National Museum; Member Secretary, Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi; Chairman, National Screening and Evaluation Committee, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI); Director, National Museum of Mankind (IGRMS), Bhopal; and Chancellor, National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA). He has headed the Delhi Institute of Heritage Research and Management (DIHRM) as Vice Chairman. He has also chaired the Bhasha Trust, Baroda. His publications include exhibition catalogues, edited journals on Art, books and articles on Family, Tribal Identity, Indigeneity, Education, Rock Art, Folk and Tribal Art, Khajuraho, Gwalior Fort, Orccha, Bodhgaya, Ujjayini, Vidisha, New Museology, Archaeology, Indology and Sanskritic traditions. Dr. Chakravarty has reinvented cognitive categories; nurtured relations among cultures, disciplines and arts; strategised culture specific governance and diplomacy; restored vanishing links of cultural, linguistic, biological diversity; regenerated community habitats as living museums; and rebuilt crumbling bridges between culture and development. He is known for fusing theory and practice in promoting cultural survival, environmental self-determination and sustainable knowledge systems of marginalized communities.