National Mission for Manuscript

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Context:

Recently the Ministry of Culture and Tourism shed light on the achievements made in the National Mission for Manuscripts and National Culture Fund.

Relevance:

GS II: Government Policies and Interventions

Dimensions of the Article:

Establishment: 2003, by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Government of India.
Objectives:
- Documentation
- Conservation
- Digitization
- Online dissemination of India’s manuscript heritage.
Infrastructure: Over 100 Manuscripts Resource Centres and Manuscripts Conservation Centres across India.
Collection: Approximately ten million manuscripts, the largest in the world, covering various themes, textures, scripts, languages, calligraphies, illuminations, and illustrations.
Definition of a Manuscript: A handwritten document on materials like paper, bark, cloth, metal, or palm leaf, at least seventy-five years old, with significant scientific, historical, or aesthetic value.
Distinction: Manuscripts differ from historical records like epigraphs and firmans, as they primarily convey knowledge content rather than direct historical facts.
Diversity: Manuscripts exist in hundreds of different languages and scripts.

Establishment: 1996, under the Charitable Endowment Act, 1890.
Purpose: To mobilize additional resources through Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) for promoting, protecting, and preserving India’s cultural heritage.
Functions:
- Financing mechanism for donor/sponsor institutions to support the protection, restoration, conservation, and development of India’s cultural and heritage sites, including monuments and cultural traditions.
- Training and development of specialists and cultural administrators.
- Expanding space in existing museums and constructing new museums for special galleries.
- Documenting cultural expressions and forms that are losing relevance or facing extinction.
Management:
- Managed by a Council chaired by the Minister of Culture and an Executive Committee chaired by the Secretary.
- Projects are overseen by a Project Implementation Committee (PIC) with representatives from donors, implementers, and NCF.
- The Comptroller and Auditor General of India annually audit the accounts of NCF.
Platform: NCF offers a reliable and innovative platform for partnerships in heritage, culture, and the arts.

Manuscript is a composition done in handwriting on paper, bark, cloth, metal, palm leaf, and other materials that have come to be at least seventy-five years old, or they are of outstanding significance to science, history, or aesthetics.
Lithographs and printed volumes are not manuscripts.
Manuscripts appear in hundreds of different languages and scripts.
Many scripts are used to write the same language. For instance, Sanskrit is written in Oriya script, Grantha script, Devanagari script, etc.
Manuscripts are different from other historical inscriptions like epigraphs on rocks, firmans, and revenue records as they directly relate to happenings or procedures in historical times.
Manuscripts carry knowledge.

-Source: The Hindu