india

Updated: Feb 01, 2019 07:34 IST

The executive council of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) decided on Thursday to award two fellowships named after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for carrying out research on prime ministers or the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

The NMML currently awards 32 fellowships — 10 senior, 10 junior and 12 fellows. These fellowships were given in the fields of, India: Recent historical trends and development, India in transition: Issues and challenges and, India and the wider world.

“The advertisement for the two Atal Bihari Vajpayee fellowships will be placed soon. The two-year fellowship will be given to scholars for carrying our research on individual prime ministers or the Prime Minister’s Office,” NMML director Shakti Sinha said.

The two grants will be a senior and a fellowship. The senior fellow will get a professor grade fellowship and the fellow will get an associate professor grade fellowship.

The government had last year decided to build a museum for all former prime ministers in the Teen Murti Estate where NMML is located. “The research done by two new fellows will help us develop the museum of PMs,” Sinha said.

The NMML also decided to open up for the first time the VK Krishna Menon papers to all bonafide scholars. Former defence minister VK Krishna Menon had bequeathed his personal papers.

The executive council also decided to have a relook at all closed collections to making them available to scholars.