What is traditional knowledge?

• Traditional knowledge (TK) is knowledge, know-how, skills and practices that are developed, sustained and passed on from generation to generation within a community, often forming part of its cultural or spiritual identity.

About the MoU:

• The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) and the CSIR-Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (CSIR-TKDL) Unit signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in New Delhi for cooperation related to digitization and inclusion of information on traditional knowledge of India from manuscripts and traditional cultural expressions.
• India is home to over two crore manuscripts containing valuable information on Indian heritage and traditional knowledge (TK). Our traditional cultural expressions (TCE) are still passed on from one generation to the next through word of mouth.
• With fewer and fewer people understanding scripts and languages of these manuscripts and our cultural expressions, the MoU between IGNCA and CSIR-TKDL Unit will facilitate efforts towards protection and preservation of the manuscript knowledge for current and future times, through inclusion of the information into the TKDL database.
• This cooperation between the Parties is also expected to enable digitization and inclusion of non-written, oral and audio-visual materials related to traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions into the TKDL.

About CSIR-TKDL:

• The Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) is a pioneering Indian initiative, jointly by the CSIR and Min of AYUSH, to prevent exploitation and to protect Indian traditional knowledge from misappropriation by way of wrongful Intellectual Property Rights.
• India’s rich traditional knowledge which exists in diverse languages such as Sanskrit, Hindi, Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Tamil etc. is neither accessible nor comprehensible for patent examiners at the international patent offices.
• The TKDL contains Indian traditional medicine knowledge from classical/ traditional texts related to Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha and Sowa Rigpa, and Yoga techniques in a digitized format and is available in five international languages (English, French, German, Spanish and Japanese) to patent examiners.
• The TKDL is accessed by 15 patent offices worldwide for search and examination of evidences related to TK in patent applications filed at their offices.
• Recently, the Cabinet, GoI approved widening of the access of the TKDL to users, beyond patent offices to stimulate R&D and innovation based on Indian TK.

About IGNCA:

• Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) is an autonomous institution under the Union Ministry of Culture, Government of India.
• The organization serves as a major resource centre for the arts, especially written, oral and visual source materials.
• It also undertakes research and publication programmes of reference works, glossaries, dictionaries and encyclopaedia concerning the arts and the humanities.
• The IGNCA initiative on “mera gaon meri dharohar” is related to mapping of information at village levels related to modern and traditional practices.