National Archives of India Celebrates 135th Foundation Day with Exhibition, Book Launch, and Digitization Initiatives on 11th March 2025.
National
On 11th March 2025, the National Archives of India (NAI) in New Delhi celebrated its 135th Foundation Day by organizing an exhibition called "Indian Heritage through Architecture." The event was inaugurated by Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat from the Ministry of Culture (MoC) and Ministry of Tourism (MoT).
- As part of the celebrations, NAI launched a book titled 'Thumb Printed: Champaran, Indigo Peasants Speak to Gandhi Volume III,' which features 423 testimonies from the Champaran Satyagraha, including stories from women and minors.
- The exhibition displayed India's rich architectural heritage, showcasing structures from the Indus Valley Civilization, medieval temples, Mughal monuments, and colonial-era buildings. It highlighted the nation’s cultural, spiritual, and historical growth.
Main Point :- (i) NAI is also working on the world’s largest digitization project, preserving over six lakh pages each month and digitizing millions of records daily.
(ii) Thanks to the success of this digitization effort, the 'Gyan Bharatam Mission' was launched to make India’s historical knowledge more accessible to the public.
(iii) The NAI, which is part of the Ministry of Culture (MoC), was founded on 11th March 1891 in Kolkata (then Calcutta), West Bengal (WB), as the Imperial Record Department. After the capital moved to Delhi in 1911, a new building designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens was completed in 1926, and all records were fully relocated by 1937.
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