Arunachal Professor Wins SAARC Grant for Tribal Museum Research

Itanagar: Prem Taba, an assistant professor at Arunachal Pradesh University, secured the 2026-27 SAARC Research Grant. The Colombo-based SAARC Cultural Centre confirmed the award on July 8 following a tight competition. Taba beat out scholars from eight different countries.

The winning project investigates how museums depict tribal communities across the Eastern Himalayan corridor. Taba will scrutinize the Jawaharlal Nehru State Museum in Itanagar and the National Museum of Bhutan in Paro. He aims to uncover how these institutions share or ignore local history.

The grant provides 3,000 dollars in funding. Taba must submit a full report for review before the cultural center considers it for publication. He views the work as a chance to push local stories into a wider regional context.

"This grant is a recognition that the heritage of our tribal communities belongs not only to Arunachal Pradesh, but to the shared cultural memory of South Asia," Taba said. He noted his goal is to force a global conversation on how museums handle indigenous knowledge.

Chief Minister Pema Khandu praised the win. He claimed the project highlights the high quality of research coming from Arunachal Pradesh. The study will run under the SAARC theme of interpreting shared heritage through cross-cultural narratives.