Records of freedom fighters to be digitised to mark 75 years of Independence: Minister

Records of freedom fighters to be digitised to mark 75 years of Independence: Minister

Subject: Culture

Context: Culture Minister G. Kishan Reddy on Monday said the National Archives’ records related to freedom fighters would be digitised within a year as a part of the commemoration of 75 years of Independence next year.

Concept:

National Archives of India

• The National Archives of India is the custodian of the records of enduring value of the Government of India(Under Ministry of Culture).
• Established on 11 March, 1891 at Calcutta (Kolkata) as the Imperial Record Department, it is the biggest archival repository in South Asia.
• It has a vast corpus of records viz., public records, private papers, oriental records, cartographic records and microfilms, which constitute an invaluable source of information for scholars-administrators and users of archives.
• The holdings in the National Archives are in a regular series starting from the year 1748 and has 40kms of shelf space.
• The Director General of Archives, heading the Department has been given the mandate for the implementation of the Public Records Act, 1993 and the rules made there under, the Public Records Rules, 1997 for the management, administration and preservation of public records.