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The Ministry of Information Technology found that though there are a lot
of initiatives in creating quality content English sites, the efforts in
Hindi were limited. IGNCA has the resources both in terms of manpower
as well as intellectual input to create such a website in Hindi. Hence
the joint project `Cultural heritage Digital Library in Hindi with Special
Focus on Hindi Speaking Region.
IGNCA hosted a two-day workshop on `Cultural Content: Exploration and
Finalization' to discuss and draw up appropriate material suitable for the
coilnet. Scholars, mainly from the disciplines of anthropology,
sociology, art history, history, folklore, Sanskrit, Hindi, Prakrit, Pali,
Buddhist Studies, archaeology, prehistory, music, manuscriptology and
museology from various art institutes in Delhi and neighbouring regions
participated in the workshop. The objective of the worshop was to
arrive at an appropriate, well-connected, suitable, ordered, simple yet
convincing materials, viz., text, audio, video, visuals etc. for the
COIL-net. This website is a mega effort to provide and disseminate
extensive, useful, lucid and research-based information on all possible
dimensions of cultural heritage of India in Hindi for the users
(schoolchildren, tourists, researchers and the general browser). The
web-users of Hindi heartland: Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi, Uttaranchal, Uttar
Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar are the focused
targets.
In this inaugural speech, Prof. N.R. Shetty, Member Secretary, IGNCA,
explained the immense significance of cultural heritage about the Hindi
speaking regions, which is sadly referred as BIMARU States. Professor
Shetty stressed, "Library is an ideal as well as practical
indicator of sustainable development. It covers all possible
branches of development, social, economic, historical, cultural, scientific
to name a few. The library, as matter of fact, has served the great
social purpose by offering its services to the users. The concept of
digital library is a great opportunity to provide democratic access to
information resources. However, because of various reasons, the web based
content is mainly in English. Hence, what is potentially a
democratizing technology is contributing in increasing the information gap
between English literate and English non-literate."
Kailash Mishra, the Co-Investigator of COIL-net in IGNCA, gave a brief
introduction to the participants about the coil-net Project. He said
though India is among the English literate countries, for most Indians their
mother tongue remains the preferred choice for communication, entertainment
and edutainment. This reality of mother tongue is best expressed by
the great Maithili Vaisanava poet Vidyapati Thakur: Desila bayana Sabha
Jana
mittha (Everybody loves the sweetness of his mother tongue)".
While the Central as well as State governments have been taking
initiatives on Personal Computer (PC) and Internet penetration, in the
absence of the localized content, this will possibly prove to be counter
productive. Hence, there is an urgent need to prepare web-enabled
localized content corpuses in Hindi and also in other Indian
languages. Some well known and highly circulated Hindi newspapers and
magazines have already started their web versions. This effort needs
to be complimented with Hindi based multimedia corpuses on regional heritage.
The COIL-Net project of IGNCA in tune with its Lifestyle project on
Lok
Parampra and Kshetra Sampada, is about developing the reusable model design,
repeatable development process and one pilot corpus in Hindi. The
lessons learnt in this exercise will also help in taking up similar
assignments for developing corpuses on the web for other Indian languages. The
participants unanimously decided to include a huge quantity of diversified
quality-base information as the basic text and audio-video materials
substantiated with photographs, sketches etc., as the content of the
website. They emphasized on the need to offer input that is carefully
selected, thoughtfully compiled and contextually integrated on areas such as
cultural heritage, folk literature and life style of Hindi speaking
region. The studies and multimedia documentation of cultural zones of
Braj, Varanasi, Gaya, Vaidyanath, Rajim, Amarkantak, Ujjain, Nathdwara,
Pushkar, Ajmer, Kumaon, Garhwal, Chattisgarh, Malwa, Bundelkhand, Gondwana,
Kurukshetra, Ang, Magadh, Mithila, Harit Kshetra, Santhal Pargana, Mewat
etc. shall be included in the corpus. It was decided that:
- The cultural heritage section shall offer the content under the
categories of folk theatre, puppetry, folk and classical traditions of
dance and music, rituals, legends, fairs, festivals, temples and other
places of worship, pilgrimage centres, artizan's creativity (such as
painting, embroidery, weaving, handicraft, jewelry, story-telling,
architecture, rivers, forest landscapes and interpersonal communication
etc). It would also include allied areas of interest such as
people's knowledge on medicinal plants, folk fames, rural adages,
meteorological poetry etc.
- The folk literature section shall contain the literature (including
proverbs, folklore, riddles and poetry) in major dialects of Hindi e.g.
Avadhi, Angika, Magahi, Maithili, Braj, Bhojpuri, Majjhi, Santhali,
Chattisgarhi, Bagheli, Marvari and other Rajasthani dialects.
- Traditionally popular literature like Panchatantra, Hitopadesha,
Jataka stories, Singhasan Battisi and oral epics like Alha Udal, Raja
Salhesa and Devnarayan etc. shall be made available through this
library.
- The works of poets and writers such as Vidyapati, Surdas, Rasakhan,
Tulsidas, Kabir, Mira, Rahim, Ghalib, Keshavdas, Jayasi, Chandravardai
etc., on the one hand and Premchand, Phanishwarnath "Reno",
Bhartendu Harischandra. Nagarjuna, Subhadra Kumari Chauhan etc.,
on the other, shall be included with selected multimedia
renderings.
Four major Hindi publications of the IGNCA: (a)
Hazariprasad Dwivedi Ke Patra; (b) Dharati aur Beej by Rajendra Ranjan
Chaturvedi; (c) Bundelkhand ki Lok Sanskrit Ka Itihasa by Narmada
Prasad Gupta; and (d) Parvrajak Ki Dairy by Nirmal Kumar Bose are
already included in the COIL-Net as base materials.
Scholars and computer professionals worked together at the workshop to
produce cultural heritage in a unique way as per the growing requirement
of the web users. The Cultural Informatics Lab of IGNCA will be
wholly involved in the project, providing the technological support.
(Report compiled by
Kailasha Mishra)
B.C. Sanyal no more
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Shri B.C. Sanyal, the acclaimed Painter-sculptor, is no more. He
passed away in early February at the age of 102. IGNCA had celebrated his
100th birthday at a function on April 22, 2001 where the entire artists
fraternity turned out to greet the grand old man. An exhibition of
tributes by over 170 artistes in various media was hosted by IGNCA on the
occasion. Sanyal was keenly following the development in the art
scene. He once said "I dream of some nuclear explosion in current
global art style, which will save us from the Coca cola and Colgate
culture". On yet another occasion he said. "It has
become like a cake of soap. Selling fast is the main criterion."
IGNCA salutes the great artist. |
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