GLAM/Newsletter/March 2022/Contents/India report

This Month in GLAM – Volume XII, Issue III, March 2022

India report

Wikimedian-in-Residence program initiated at the Research Institute of World's Ancient Traditions, Cultures and Heritage in Arunachal Pradesh

A GLAM project has been initiated at the Research Institute of World's Ancient Traditions, Cultures and Heritage (RIWATCH) located in the village of Khinjili near the town of Roing at Lower Dibang Valley district of Arunachal Pradesh in the North-eastern part of India. RIWATCH has an ethnographic museum and a collection of photographs, audio and video files depicting the rich cultural tradition of different tribes and indigenous people of Arunachal Pradesh and North East India at large the region. CIS-A2K had made contact with the institute in 2019 for a possible GLAM project but due to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting nation-wide restriction of movement, further communication was postponed. Communication with the institute was resumed again on January 2022 and after receiving their positive response, it was decided to have a field visit during the month of March. West Bengal Wikimedians User Group was also involved in setting up the GLAM process. Kime Rilla, a resident of Itanagar and a close associate with RIWATCH, was given Wikimedia training and assigned as Wikimedian-in-Residence for the GLAM partnership. Vijay Swami, the executive director, has released all RIWATCH digital contents under CC-BY-SA 4.0 license. Slow internet is the major challenge of this GLAM project which has hindered the smooth uploading of the media files on Wikimedia Commons.