Culture Ministry today signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Google Arts and Culture to bring India’s cultural heritage to the public through cutting-edge digital tools. Culture Secretary Vivek Aggarwal said that India’s cultural heritage is a living inheritance and it belongs to every citizen and speaks to the whole world. The Secretary said that the partnership enables the preservation and sharing of the country’s ancient manuscripts and monuments in the collections of national museums and the upcoming Yuge Yugeen Bharat Museum. He expressed hope that it will bring more people closer to the story of Indian civilisation, and safeguard it for generations to come.

Vice President and Founder of Google Arts and Culture, Amit Sood said that Google Arts and Culture has been deeply inspired by India’s millennia of storytelling, artistic mastery and vast heritage. He said that the partnership with the Ministry of Culture represents a shared commitment to preserve India’s timeless treasures with the help of cutting-edge technologies.

The Ministry said that the partnership will reflect the civilisational breadth of India, from the monuments and archaeological sites protected by the Archaeological Survey of India to the holdings of the national museums, the manuscript heritage being documented under Gyan Bharatam, and the crafts, performing arts and living traditions sustained by the Ministry’s institutions across the country. At its centre is the Yuge Yugeen Bharat Museum, taking shape in the North and South Blocks of New Delhi as a museum of India’s history across the ages. The Ministry said that its digitisation will create a lasting record of the buildings and the wealth of artefacts they will house, and offer the public an early window onto one of the most significant cultural undertakings of time. The agreement will strengthen accessibility and expand digital initiatives of the Ministry, so that India’s heritage can be explored in Indian languages and on any device.