Pune: Team Sketchpaintxprs for India Honoured by National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla
Pune: Team Sketchpaintxprs for India Honoured by National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla
Team Sketchpaintxprs for India is a pan India program led by the B.N. Srivastava Foundation.
30 May 2024
Team Sketchpaintxprs was engulfed in moments of pure pride and joy yesterday when Major General Sanjeev Dogra from NDA Khadakwasla became the first armed forces officer to accept a souvenir made by the organisation in person.
In return, Officer Dogra honoured the Sketchpaintxprs team with a beautiful presentation of the National Defence Academy.
Team Sketchpaintxprs is a program led by the B.N. Srivastav Foundation which was founded in the year 2006 to honour Bateshwar Nath Srivastava. B.N. Srivastava was a member of a well-educated family from Bihar, who completed his schooling at Dayal Bagh, Agra. He pursued further studies at the Lucknow School of Art before joining as the senior-most art teacher at the School of Arts and Crafts in Patna in 1943, sent there by the Government of Bihar for higher education in fine and modern arts at the “Academia De Belle Arti” in Florence, Italy, from 1955 to 1957.
In 1957, he became the Head of the Department of Fine Arts at the College of Arts and Crafts in Patna. He was one of the few Indian artists who had the opportunity to spend time with the great artist Pablo Picasso, exchanging views about Indian arts and learning about cubist art.
Sketchpaintxprs for India is one of the most popular educational programs in India. It was established in 2006 to deploy art to foster national pride among students. It entails crafting greeting cards, rakhis (wristbands) and other items for soldiers and encourages students to make art for the armed services. The program is fully supported by sponsorships and individual donations.
It is heavily backed by ITBP, the Coast Guard, veterans and corporate sponsors. Military officials have even written letters of gratitude for it.
Speaking to Pune Pulse, the managing director of the program, Bijay Kumar, remarked “This is our soul. It is noble work and it inspires school kids to engage in the noble work of making greeting cards, hankies, etc for the armed forces officers. More than 2500 schools are working with us, some have become independent also after learning from us but we still have over 2000 schools connected with us.”
