The Ministry of Culture has launched a national portal for museums. Collections in all museums under its control and those under the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) will be digitized and presented on this portal. This portal has been developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) with technical help from The Art Institute of Chicago. Currently, over 11,000 digitized artifacts from 10 museums, namely Indian Museum, Kolkata, Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata, National Museum, New Delhi, Allahabad Museum, Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru, Archaeological Museum, Nagarjunakonda, and Archaeological Museum, Goa, are on display on the portal. Collections in other museums under the Ministry of Culture and ASI are expected to be digitized over the next 3-4 years and presented for online viewing. In 2014-15 collections at Ratnagiri Museum, Halebidu Museum, Lothal Museum, Mattancherry Palace, Cochin, Fort St. George Museum, Chennai, Bodhgaya Museum, and Sarnath Museum are to be digitized. Apparently, the National Mission on Monuments and Antiquities (NMMA) has also created a database of over 2 lakh antiquities, though it’s not clear if these would be made available on the portal or not. Website: The portal is easy to use. Users can search particular artifacts in individual museums or click on any of 10 museums displayed below and browse their collections. There is also an interesting ‘Timeline’ feature that allows users to browse through different categories of artifacts, like Miniature Painting, Sculpture, Manuscripts,…
