Context:
Santiniketan, associated with Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, has been recommended for inclusion on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
- The recommendation was made by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), which is the advisory body to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, based on a file moved by the Centre.
About Santiniketan:
- Santiniketan, popularly known today as a university town, a hundred miles to the north of Kolkata, was originally an ashram built by Debendranath Tagore.
- Although Santiniketan is a university town sprawling across a large area that includes the entire Visva-Bharati campus, the places likely to get Unesco’s heritage tag are the core ashram area.
- The core ashram area includes:
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- Patha Bhavana (the first school set up by Tagore in 1901)
- Upasana Griha (prayer hall, locally known as the glass temple)
- Kala Bhavana (institute of fine arts)
- Sangit Bhavana (institute of music)
- Santiniketan Griha (the first house bought by Tagore’s father Debendranath).
- The Uttarayan complex includes five houses of Tagore and a museum.
- Santiniketan has been nominated as the only living heritage university, where open-air classes are still held under the tree.
UNESCO’s World Heritage List:
- World Heritage site, any of various areas or objects inscribed on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage List.
- The sites are designated as having “outstanding universal value” under the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage.
- This document was adopted by UNESCO in 1972 and formally took effect in 1975 after having been ratified by 20 countries.
- It provides a framework for international cooperation in preserving and protecting cultural treasures and natural areas throughout the world.
Sites in India:
- At the moment, India is home to 40 UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
- Out of these, 32 are cultural, 7 are natural, and one, the Khangchendzonga National Park, is of mixed type.
- India has the sixth-largest number of sites in the world.
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About ICOMOS:
- The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS)is a non-government organisation that provides the World Heritage Committee with evaluations of properties with cultural values that are proposed for inscription on the World Heritage List.
- It also conducts comparative studies, provides technical assistance and reports on the state of conservation of inscribed properties.
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News Source: The Hindu
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May 11, 2023
