30-Apr-2018: Prime Minister honours Tibetan institute
Prime Minister Narendra Modi honoured Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies (Deemed University) (CIHTS) as part of celebrations to mark Buddha Purnima. At an event held in New Delhi. The issues facing the world can be solved by following the path of the Buddha.
We are fortunate to have the teachings of Lord Buddha among us even after 2,500 years. Government has allocated ₹360 crore for the development of the Buddhist circuit. This will help in developing Buddhist spots in U.P., Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and A.P.
The Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies (Deemed University) (CIHTS) at Sarnath, Varanasi, is one of its kinds in the country. The Institute is a centrally funded institute established in 1967. The idea of the Institute was mooted in course of a dialogue between Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India and Dalai Lama with a view to educating the young Tibetan Diaspora and those from the Himalayan border regions of India, who have religion, culture and language in common with Tibet.
Originally the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies (CIHTS), began to function as a constituent wing of the Sampurnananda Sanskrit University, and eventually emerged as an autonomous body in 1977 under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India.
Though the Central Tibetan Administration, the authority of the Tibetans in exile has several programmes for cultural preservation, CIHTS is unique as it is a unique institution in India.
Honouring of the Tibet-related institute is perceived as an important significant step as it came a day after Prime Minister Modi returned from his bilateral informal summit with President Xi Jinping of China. He also honoured the All India Bhikshu Sangha of Bodh Gaya.
2-Mar-2018: National Cultural Audiovisual Archives becomes world’s first Trusted Digital Repository.
National Cultural Audiovisual Archives (NCAA) project of the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, implemented by Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) has been certified as the world’s first Trusted Digital Repository as per ISO 16363:2012 standard, granted by Primary Trustworthy Digital Repository Authorisation Body Ltd. (PTAB), United Kingdom.
Leveraging this historic achievement, the plan for the next phase is to integrate about three lakh hours of audiovisuals materials, a corpus estimated based on a scoping survey conducted in 25 cities across the country, on this platform over the next five years.
The primary objective of the NCAA is to identify and preserve the cultural heritage of India available in audiovisual form through a process of digitization and making it accessible to the people. By March 2018, a corpus of 30,000 hours of unpublished, non-commercial audio & video recordings will be made online, out of which approximately 15,000 hours are already hosted online along with contextual metadata, representing the cultural diversity of India in the broadest sense. Over 23,000 hours of unpublished audiovisual recordings have already been digitized. NCAA pilot digital repository was developed in collaboration with the Centre of Excellence for Digital Preservation by C-DAC, Pune. NCAA digital repository is established with and powered by DIGITĀLAYA which is developed by C-DAC Pune in compliance with Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model ISO 14721:2012.
At present, NCAA has a total of twenty-one (21) Partnering Institutions from across the country, covering 11 governmental and 10 non-governmental cultural organisations. The digitization and metadata standards followed by the Project are in parity with international standards within the overall framework of the OAIS model. The digitization standards are in concordance with those prescribed by the International Association of Sound & Audiovisual Archives (IASA) and the metadata schema is extended Dublin Core, followed by galleries, libraries, archives and museums worldwide
Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts has been set up by the Government of India, as a premier research institute dedicated to holistic understanding and expression of Indian arts in their inter and multi-disciplinary nature. One of the principal aims of the centre is to serve as a major national resource centre for the arts. The IGNCA has been designated by the Government of India as the nodal agency for a data bank on art, humanities and cultural heritage. The Centre has also been identified by UNESCO as nodal agency for the development of regional databases for South and South East Asian countries on art, cultural heritage and life-styles through the application of state-of-the-art technologies for standardization, exchange and dissemination of data.
23-Feb-2018: Mumbai becomes first Indian city to join World Cities Culture Forum
Mumbai is set to be the newest member and the first Indian city on the World Cities Culture Forum(WCCF), a platform for cities to share their culture.
The WCCF enables the policy makers of member cities to share research and intelligence, while exploring the vital role of culture in prosperity. Forum members collaborate via a program of events including themed symposia, regional summits and workshops.
Mumbai, like members of the Forum, will be able to share its culture as part of a comparative research to understand its role and impact. The municipal corporation will be able to maintain a relationship with the other member cities and Mumbai will be represented on the Forum at all events. Through its leadership exchange program, the city’s policy makers will be able to share ideas, technology, challenges and access cultures and arts.
Rapid urbanisation means that, by 2030, two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities. The very speed of change is unprecedented and governments are facing increasingly complex challenges. Many of the great policy issues of our age, from tackling climate change to promoting social equality, are being led at city, rather than national, level. As urban populations grow, so does the pressure on leaders to maintain their city’s distinctiveness, attract business and skilled jobs, and stay resilient and adaptable in the face of change.
The World Cities Culture Forum (WCCF), which BOP convenes, provides a way for policy makers to share research and intelligence, and explore the vital role of culture in their future prosperity. The forum, which began in 2012 with eight members, is a network of 32 key cities today, including London, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Cape Town, Dakar, Edinburgh, Lisbon, San Francisco, Shanghai, Singapore, Toronto et al.