Overview

• The three-day Gyan Bharatam International Conference in New Delhi concluded with the New Delhi Declaration committing to preservation, repatriation or digitisation of manuscript heritage.
• The Gyan Bharatam Mission centers on identification, conservation and large-scale digitisation using AI tools, culminating in a National Digital Repository for public access.
• Officials say the programme targets more than one crore manuscripts across universities, museums, libraries and private collections through a network of resource and conservation centres.
• Funding for the effort has been outlined in public statements, with the Union Budget citing a Rs 400-crore project and the Home Minister referencing an overall cost of about Rs 483 crore.
• The Ministry of Culture also launched Gyan-Setu, a national AI innovation challenge to develop tools for handwritten text recognition, metadata, and access solutions for manuscripts.