Yuge Yugeen museum Cul Min attends brainstorming session visits site with French delegation

New Delhi, Jun 29 (PTI) Union Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat along with senior officials of his ministry on Saturday took part in an intensive brainstorming session on the proposed Yuge Yugeen Bharat Museum, and the minister also visited the site in Delhi with a French delegation.
     The museum will be housed in the British-era North Block and South Block of the Raisina Hill complex.
     "This museum will stand as a testament to India's rich heritage and its unwavering spirit of progress, as it draws inspiration from its past as a blueprint," Shekhawat said.
     He along with Union Culture Secretary Govind Mohan and other senior officials of the Culture Ministry took part in a meeting held on the last day of the four-day session hosted at Bharat Mandapam, the ministry said in a statement.
     Stakeholders of the museum ecosystem such as high-level management from government museums, private experts such as conservation architects, scenographers, exhibition designers, publishers, conservationists, educators and many others took part in the session over the last four days
     The intensive brainstorming session and workshops held over the past few days provided invaluable insights into the core operational elements of a world-class museum. These sessions focused on critical areas such as collection management, curatorial practices, administrative best practices, and the strategic integration of technology, it said.
     The knowledge gleaned will be instrumental in shaping the development of the Yuga Yugeen Bharat Museum, the ministry said.
     The final day of the deliberation was attended by the Union Minister for Culture and Tourism, senior officials of the ministry and French Ambassador to India Thierry Mathou, the statement said.
     "The Yuge Yugeen Bharat Museum will transcend the traditional museum experience, embodying the spirit of inclusivity. It will be a museum of the people, centring community narratives, a testament to India's legacy as the mother of democracy," Shekhawat was quoted as saying in the statement.
     He later also posted some photographs of the session on X.
     "A special meeting was held on the proposed Yuge Yugeen Bharat Museum and opinions were sought from the officials of the Ministry of Culture and other experts. In this sequence, talks were held with French Ambassador Thierry Mathou during lunch break. I also visited North and South Blocks with the French delegation," he wrote on the social media platform.
     The upcoming Yuge Yugeen Bharat National Museum,” billed to be the largest museum in the world, will have eight thematic segments telling the story of India spanning over 5,000 years.
     The new national museum of India is set to come up at North Block and South Block as part of the Central Vista redevelopment project that seeks to revamp India's central administrative area, the ministry said.
     The museum will be spread over 1,54,000 sqm, making it the largest museum in the world, the statement said.
     The museum is to be developed through adaptive reuse, in collaboration with France owing to their expertise in similar projects such as the Louvre museum, which too once housed the France's Ministry of Finance, it said.
     France is a partner for this project owing to the long-standing friendship between the two countries, which had contributed to a Letter of Intent being signed between both the governments in 2020 that emphasised museum and heritage co-operation, the statement said.
     The video walk through of the museum was first unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the inauguration of the first International Museum Expo hosted by the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) division of the Ministry of Culture on April 18 last year.
     Pursuant to this, the GLAM division spearheaded a series of capacity building workshops that aimed to foster these critical objectives -- alignment among stakeholders and generation of synergy for a unified vision, officials said.
     The first of these was a brainstorming session held on the June 14, bringing together other ministries and departments of the government of India. This not only fosters interdepartmental coordination but also ensures the project resonates with various facets of Indian society, the statement said.
     "This collaborative spirit, fostered through intensive discussions and knowledge exchange, will propel the project forward towards the next development phase, giving rise to a space that resonates not only with India but with the international community," the Culture Ministry said.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)