PRESERVATION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE OF INDIA THROUGH OPEN ACCESS INITIATIVES

The advancements in the information and communication technologies witnessed in the last three decades are proving to be a boon for the preservation of cultural heritage. This is particularly true in case of a culturally rich country like India whose five thousand years of unbroken heritage has produced enormous corpus of artifacts, manuscripts, numismatics, painting and carvings. The government of India launched several initiatives to provide universal and open access to cultural heritage in the form of virtual content in digital form to each and everyone with an internet connection. These initiatives to make cultural heritage material digitally accessible openly and freely to one and all are highly laudable steps towards digital preservation of India's heritage. Being a country with a very rich cultural past these digital initiatives are also eyed to help in the preservation of the rich cultural legacy of the country and make them accessible to the scholars across the globe. The present paper examines and evaluates the Indian initiatives in these respects by identifying their shortcomings, challenges before them and their potential.