India has offered its technical expertise to Oman in digitising its archival records besides exploring other areas of collaboration.
The National Archives of India has identified areas of collaboration with the Archives Authority of Oman after a meeting between senior officials of the Indian archives and their Omani counterparts in Muscat last week.
The meeting was held between Hamad Mohommed Al Dhawiani, Oman's chairman of National Records and Archives Authority, and V Srinivas, director general of National Archives of India.
"A technical assistance programme for developing training programmes would be formulated by the two institutions. Both sides would seek to explore areas of collaboration in digitising the archival records," an official statement said.
"They will work on exchange of archivists to develop archival records in both countries. Besides, the Indian archives office would facilitate interaction with State Archives and grant-in-aid institutions associated with the Portuguese history in India," it said.
The Indian archives officials also held a series of meetings at the State Archives of Turkey. The protocol will allow National Archives of India to access 12 million ancient Ottoman Archives records this year.
The Archives will host an Omani delegation of archivists in New Delhi to prepare proper reference media for the archival documents collected from Indian side and will also hold an exhibition in New Delhi on Omani and Ottoman archival records besides a seminar featuring Arabic scholars from both sides, the Times of Oman reported.
Oman has accessed 73,000 documents of historical importance from the National Archives of India for building an international records section in its National Records and Archives Authority.
India and Turkey recognised the benefits from the collaboration in the field of archives and agreed on the need for deeper collaboration in the coming years to develop strong institutions and improved record management practices.
They also agreed on a road-map for future collaboration in identifying archival material of mutual interest.
The National Archives of India has agreed to host a delegation of archivists from the State Archives of Turkey at the National Archives of India for a period of five days to identify documents which are of interest to the State Archives of Turkey.
Turkey will provide a catalogue of reference material available with it for the National Archives of India and to hold a week-long exhibition of Ottoman Archival Records at the National Archives of India.
It was also agreed that an advance team from the State Archives of Turkey could be deputed to National Archives of India to work out the logistical arrangements, collaboration in training programmes and collaboration in digitisation of records.
