PM Modi launches Gyan Bharatam portal, ancient manuscripts will get digital life

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Gyan Bharatam portal at the International Conference on Manuscript Heritage organized at Vigyan Bhavan in the national capital New Delhi. Gyan Bharatam is a digital platform, which aims to preserve, digitize and disseminate the traditional knowledge of ancient manuscripts of India. The theme of this conference is the recovery of India’s knowledge tradition through manuscript heritage, which has been organized by the Ministry of Culture from 11 to 13 September.

Let us tell you that Gyan Bharatam will work as a digital gateway, which will help in bringing the ancient knowledge of India to the world. Under this, more than one crore manuscripts spread across the country will be identified and digitized, preserved and made publicly available. These manuscripts are kept in universities, museums, libraries and private collections.

Eight special working groups formed under the Gyan Bharatam portal presented the work being done in their respective fields in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. These groups will work on important topics such as preservation of manuscripts, digitization technology, determination of metadata standards, development of legal framework, cultural diplomacy, and reading and understanding ancient scripts. The objective of these working groups is to preserve India’s ancient knowledge heritage and pass it on to future generations in digital form.

It is worth noting that India is considered to have the world’s largest heritage of ancient manuscripts. There are about one crore manuscripts in the country, which contain deep knowledge in subjects like Ayurveda, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, music, yoga. In such a situation, the aim of launching the portal of Gyan Bharatam is to bring the traditional knowledge hidden in the manuscripts of India to the global stage and India once again becomes the guide of the global knowledge tradition. This initiative is being seen as an important step under the Ministry of Culture, which will give a new identity to India’s knowledge tradition in the world.