New Delhi: Cricket, the most popular game in the Indian sub-continent, could be the cultural glue bonding the South Asian countries.
Keeping this objective in view, India today proposed to conduct the ‘cricket connects' exhibition in SAARC countries.
India proposed to hold exhibition in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal to celebrate the cricketing heritage of the subcontinent as cricket connects the people of the region like no other sports, Culture Secretary Ravindra Singh said.
“We have received positive responses from many countries to conduct the exhibition,” he said on the eve of the SAARC Culture Ministers' meeting here tomorrow.
He said India extended support for instituting a technical assistance programme for strengthening SAARC cultural institutions.
“India is willing to commit itself to instituting a technical assistance programme for strengthening SAARC cultural institutions through the Archaeological Survey of India, National Archives of India, the National Museum and the National Gallery of Modern Art,” Ravindra Singh said.
“We would also seek to promote greater collaboration between our cultural institutions for performing arts, literature and visual arts, namely the Sangeet Natak Akademi, the Sahitya Akademi and the Lalit Kala Akademi with their counterpart institutions,” he said at a meeting of senior officers' of the SAARC countires.
The meeting fixed the agenda for the third edition of SAARC Culture Ministers summit tomorrow which would be inaugurated by Culture Minister Shripad Naik.
The major activities envisaged in the agenda include strengthening of cultural institutions in member-countries, cultural festivals in the region, preservation and conservation practices and promoting literacy and reading habits.
Singh said the National Mission on Libraries project, which seeks to establish the National Virtual Library of India, would also provide digital space for promotion of SAARC culture online.
Referring to the SAARC Culture Centre in Colombo, he said the aim is to empower it as resource institution for ‘project mausam' to conduct research workshops for countries in the Indian Ocean rim which have developed a common maritime cultural linkages with each other.
