Indian citizens must protect and preserve India`s rich heritage for posterity. While promoting heritage tourism, care should be taken not to undermine or risk the existence of our ancient heritage, writes Nikita Shastri. India is a land of diversity and the country’s rich heritage is a mesmerising confluence of cultures, customs, traditions, religions, ethnicities, practices, art, architecture, landscapes, flora and fauna. The most recently concluded International Yoga Day, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, speaks volumes of India’s growing assertion in the global sphere and recognition of its age-old heritage and concurrent processes. A country with more than a…
Author: oiop
India’s heritage is the richest and the most diverse in the world. While most sites are documented, there are many that continue to languish in obscurity and unless documented and revived, risk sliding into oblivion, cautions Vanshika Jain. The recent COVID-19 outbreak and ensuing guidelines disrupted the tourist season, affecting footfalls drastically across all heritage sites in India. On 6 July 2020, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) reopened more than 2,000 centrally protected monuments and heritage sites. Yet, several popular sites, especially those lying in the COVID hotspots, continue to remain shut. The ones yet to open include the…
The Khajuraho group of monuments is a fine example of Indian ideology, mythology and artistic tradition. The myriad moods of love are captured and frozen for eternity at this World Heritage Site, writes Anuradha Pittie. Khajuraho in Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh stands apart as a masterpiece of Indian temple art and architecture, with an aesthetic appeal beyond cultural boundaries. It is listed as a World Heritage Site for its ‘human creative genius’ and ‘outstanding universal value’. The temple complex was built between 10th and 12th centuries, under the patronage of the Chandellas, the Rajput chieftains ruling over Bundelkhand region.…
Lakhs of Indian tourists have been forced to call off their international travel plans due to the pandemic. India must grab this opportunity to nurture and boost local heritage tourism, says Nandini Bose. In February 2020, the government announced the Union Budget for FY 2020-21 which included several measures to enhance India’s stature as a tourism and cultural destination. These included the development of iconic tourist sites, setting up new museums and better infrastructure for connectivity with a special focus on heritage sites. Additionally, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also called upon Indians to reshape India by going ‘Vocal for Local’.…
Heritage Management has emerged as a lucrative career option in the last decade. The post-COVID world, however, will change the meaning and avenues for a career in Heritage Management that anticipates extensive digitization, writes Gauravi Patel. Heritage Management is not the ‘first preference’ for a career for most students who prefer traditional, ‘secure’ options such as engineering, medicine, banking, law, media, management, marketing, civil services, etc. The numbers of those engaged in heritage management as professionals are too few and far beyond, particularly in a country rich in cultural and natural heritage. Even among those who call it a career,…
The pandemic has once again brought to focus the ‘Tourism vs Development’ debate. One cannot be at the cost of other writes Shalini Sood emphasising the need to address the concerns related to heritage tourism. Tourism is a significant source of revenue generation for many countries including India. The COVID-19 outbreak has however, brought the world to a standstill and also battered economies hugely dependent on tourism. The pandemic has brought to fore the historical ‘Tourism vs Development’ debate as both the processes will now be looked at in a new light in the post-COVID world. Although a few sites…
The Constitution of India clearly delineates the jurisdiction over India’s cultural heritage, monuments and archaeological sites. However, are heritage laws enough to protect the country’s rich heritage, asks Kunal Singh. India is one of the few nations in the world with an unparalleled cultural heritage. It has also been the reason of innumerable foreign invasions that have marked the country’s history for thousands of years. So, a July 2020 judgment by the Supreme Court upholding the rights of the Travancore royal family to administer and manage the property at Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, one of the richest temples in…
Kavitha Subramanian gives us details of the several government schemes initiated for heritage protection and management and to enhance tourism potential. On 27 June 2020, the Union Minister of State for Culture and Tourism (I/C) Prahlad Singh Patel announced that the Ministry will celebrate Sankalp Parva from 28 June to 12 July and plant trees as desired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.The Ministry recommended to plant five trees that have been identified by PM Modi and represent India’s herbal heritage: Bargad, Amla, Peepal, Ashok and Bel. The initiative as undertaken at the backdrop of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to emphasise…
Addressing socio-economic imbalances and environmental mutilations – both wages of mass and uncontrolled/unregulated tourism – is a task that can be achieved by all stakeholders, feels Raju Korti. Tourism has unfolded in all its multi-splendoured glory at an astonishing pace in the last few decades. By all accounts this growth rate also signifies the pride of place India occupies on the Heritage Tourism map given its vast expanse of sites that deserve a pre-eminent status. Tourism has always been triggered by man’s desire to understand diverse cultural identities that accrue to become a melting pot and a unifying force. Not…
The sun-drenched Andamans, marooned in the bluest of blue oceans, even today exude a delicious sense of adventure and are a visual feast, with nature as the sole travel companion. The waters of the Bay of Bengal rippled below our aircraft as it nosed down on Port Blair, capital of the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which lie 1,250 km south of Kolkata. Those hues, an ocean shot through with vivid shades of blue and islands that were humps of green, were as evanescent as the colours on a butterfly’s wings. When our aircraft soft-landed at Port…