Dr Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Culture & Tourism on 17 June 2017 launched the implementation of the National Mission on Cultural Mapping of India at Goverdhan Block, Mathura District of Uttar Pradesh.
The national mission on cultural mapping was launched in a day long, Block level mega talent hunt programme (Sanskritik Pratibha Khoj Samaroh).
This Mission is part of the ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’ umbrella.
Ministry of Culture launched it in the year of commemoration of the birth centenary of Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay, who hailed from Mathura.
After launching the National Mission on Cultural Mapping of India, the cultural minister informed that his ministry will be organising similar Block level events in other States.
The exercise will help the government to kick start the process of scaling up the efforts to cover all the Blocks of the Country. The current round includes Shimoga Block in Shimoga District, Karnataka, Thanesar Block in Kurukshetra District, Haryana, Chauri - Chaura Block in Gorakhpur District in Uttar Pradesh & Saraikela Block in Saraikela - Kharsawan District in Jharkhand.
Ministry of Culture has planned to hold talent hunt competitions with various rounds from Block level to National level. The scheme is set to cover all the Blocks of the Country, involving a total of 6.40 Lakh villages over the span of next 3 years.
National cultural mapping mission: Know More- The mission aims at converting the vast and widespread cultural canvas of India into an objective cultural map, designing a mechanism to fulfil the aspirations of the whole artist community of the nation and preserving the rich cultural heritage of this country in the form of a cultural repository of artists and art forms.
- This Mission encompasses data mapping, demography building formalising the processes and bringing all the cultural activities under one web-based umbrella for better results.
- The Mission also seeks to open a direct channel of communication for artists with the Government and peer to peer communication among artists for talent honing and handholding of each other.
- The Cultural Mapping of India portal will serve as a repository/consolidated database of information about cultural assets and resources i.e. a cultural inventory at one place for essential planning, sustainable economic development and for preserving the scattered and near extinct art forms. Artist/Organisations also may register online at www.culturalmapping.nic.in.
Academy to Promote Braj Bhasha- Also on the anvil is an academy to promote Braj Bhasha, a dialect of Hindi which is spoken by people primarily in Braj region including Agra, Mathura, Etah and Aligarh.
- Braj Sahitya Academy most likely will be set up in Mathura.
- Braj language descended from Shauraseni Prakrit and commonly viewed as a western dialect of Hindi. It is spoken by some 575000 people, primarily in India.
