President Pranab Mukherjee today stressed on preserving the nation's rich heritage and promoting its arts and culture to strike a balance between the inner needs of the people with the rapid scientific and economic progress. Inaugurating the silver jubilee celebrations of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA) at the Rastrapathi Bhavan, Mr. Mukherjee said, arts and culture play a major role in maintaining an equilibrium between the spiritual and material need of humans. The President, said, institutions like IGNCA need to discover and re-invent new ways of establishing a creative and meaningful dialogue between different stakeholders and adding cultural dimensions to the development debate.

Speaking on the ocassion Union Culture Minister Mrs. Chandresh Kumari Katoch said, the rich and diverse culture of the country needs to be preserved and passed on to future generations. Our correspondent reports, publications brought out by IGNCA and a collection of eleven DVD's were also released on the ocassion.