| Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) It was established in 1987 as an autonomous institution under the Ministry of Culture, as a centre for research, academic pursuit and dissemination in the field of the arts. The Arts encompass a wide range of subjects – from archaeology and anthropology to the visual and performing arts, enveloping them in a complementary and non-demarcated vision. |
- The Union Ministry of Culture plans to “revive and relaunch” the National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM) with the possible creation of an autonomous body, the National Manuscripts Authority, for preserving India’s ancient texts.
- Currently, NMM operates under the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts.
- The new proposed body would function as an autonomous entity under the Ministry of Culture.
- A meeting chaired by the culture minister, reviewed NMM’s achievements since its inception in 2003.
- It was noted that NMM has created metadata for 52 lakh manuscripts, digitized over 3 lakh titles, and uploaded one-third of them.
- Over the past 21 years, NMM has conducted preventive and curative conservation for 9 crore folios.
| Manuscript: A manuscript is a handwritten composition on paper, bark, cloth, metal, palm leaf or any other material dating back at least seventy-five years that has significant scientific, historical or aesthetic value. Lithographs and printed volumes are not manuscripts. Manuscripts are found in hundreds of different languages and scripts. Often, one language is written in a number of different scripts. For example, Sanskrit is written in Oriya script, Grantha script, Devanagari script and many other scripts. |
Dig Deeper: Read about the Bakhshali Manuscript.
