Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: New National Manuscripts Mission
Why in the News?
The Union Ministry of Culture is planning to revive and relaunch the National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM) and is considering the formation of an autonomous body to help preserve India’s ancient texts.
Why Center is re-evolving this scheme?
- Currently, the NMM operates as part of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts.
- The new entity, expected to be named the National Manuscripts Authority, will likely function as an autonomous body under the Ministry of Tourism and Culture.
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About the National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM):
| Aims and Objectives |
- To document, conserve, digitize, and disseminate India’s manuscript heritage.
- Set up over 100 Manuscripts Resource Centres and Manuscripts Conservation Centres across India.
- Manuscripts are often on materials like paper, bark, cloth, metal, or palm leaf, and are at least 75 years old, with significant scientific, historical, or aesthetic value.
- India has an estimated 10 million manuscripts covering various themes, languages, scripts, and illustrations.
- Manuscripts primarily contain knowledge content, unlike historical records.
- 80% of manuscripts are privately owned, limiting public availability.
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| Structural Mandate |
- Formed in 2003 by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture.
- Managed by the National Archives of India.
- Currently operates as part of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts.
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| Features and Programs under the Mission |
- Documented metadata for 5.2 million manuscripts and digitized 300,000 titles, though only a third of them have been uploaded.
- Only 70,000 of the 130,000 manuscripts uploaded are accessible for viewing due to the absence of an access policy.
- Preventive and curative conservation of 9 crore folios has been conducted over 21 years.
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PYQ:
[2008] Recently, the manuscripts of which one of the following have been included in the UNESCO’s Memory of World Register?
(a) Abhidhamma Pitaka
(b) Mahabharata
(c) Ramayana
(d) Rig-Veda |
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