Bulu Imam, Convener, Hazaribagh Chapter, INTACH since 1987, has been campaigning to save the Upper Damodar Valley (North Karanpura) from opencast coal mining. In 1991, he brought to light the first painted rock art shelter of Jharkhand at Isco, and thereafter with INTACH members and his family, brought to light over one dozen unknown painted rock shelters of the Meso-Chalcolithic Period in the North Karanpura region. He started Sanskriti Museum, Hazaribagh in 1992 and established Tribal Women Artists Cooperative in 1993. He has dedicated his life for the upliftment of tribal women and protection of their indigenous rights and environment in the face of massive opencast coal mining and industrialization in the Upper Damodar Valley and Hazaribagh region. The project has empowered tribal women through the Cooperative, which has held over fifty exhibitions and mural painting projects in which several of the artists have participated over the years in UK, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, Austria, USA, Canada, and Australia. He has published many books and essays in reputed journals and contributed several papers in national and international seminars. A widely known activist, artist, poet, and researcher, he lives with his family at the Sanskriti Centre and Museum which displays the palaeo-archaeology collections and tribal art and culture in a specially created space in his family estate in Hazaribagh. He has received several awards for his work, including the Gandhi International Peace Award 2011 given to him by the Gandhi Foundation, UK, in the House of Lords, London on 12th June 2012.
