Archival material on Charminar to be digitalised

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Archival material on Charminar to be digitalised, AP Archives and Research Institute. NMM was formed in 2003 with the objective of preserving manuscripts in the country. It has traced five million manuscripts in India and has 13 centres in South India.

Hyderabad: At a time when only five per cent of the archival material in India is being digitalised, rare manuscripts on construction of Charminar and Lad Bazaar were among the documents that are with the AP State Archives and Research Institute (APASRI).

The Tareeq-e-Qutub Shahi documents reveal the life and times of the rulers of the Qutub Shahi period. The transcription from old Persian has been completed which would be followed by translation and then digitised, said Dr Zareena Parveen, Director, APASRI, at the inaugural function of the workshop on preventive conservation of manuscripts, jointly organised by APASRI and National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM).

NMM was formed in 2003 with the objective of preserving manuscripts in the country. It has traced five million manuscripts in India and has 13 centres in South India.

Prof Prafful Kumar Mishra, Director of NMM, said, “50 million manuscripts have been traced in India out of which 60 per cent are in Sanskrit. But it is sad to know that just five per cent of the work gets published. Scholars, students, historians and other academicians need to publish their works and that is the only way to preserve and take forward the glorious culture forward.” Lamenting on the lack of interest even among research scholars to visit the archives, Usha Suresh, former director of Karnataka Archives, said, “Unless scholars make an effort to visit archives, new research and findings are not possible. There is so much treasure available across the country.” Concurring with the view, Prof. Prafful said, “In Lucknow Tagore Library there are 20,000 palm leaf manuscripts and at Utkal University there are 500 manuscripts. Researchers and historians need to publish these works.”

Dr Zareena Parveen informed that 21 lakh pages have been scanned and 75 per cent of the digitisation work for the financial year was completed.

Prof. V Kishan Rao (retd), Department of Ancient Indian History Culture and Archaeology, Prof. A Satyanarayana, Dept of History, OU, also participated in the workshop. The four-day workshop will conclude on February 21, 2014.

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