Portugal, India to share expertise on archiving heritage

NEW DELHI: India and Portugal, which have cultural ties dating back to the colonial days, have agreed to join hands to conserve their shared heritage and architecture.

As part of a wide ranging agreement signed by Portugal's Culture Minister Isabel Pires de Lima and her Indian counterpart Ambika Soni on Friday, collaboration between museums and libraries of both countries has been emphasised.

De Lima offered her country's expertise to India in the area of museology and both countries discussed the need to conduct training programmes in this field.

Besides cooperation in archiving and microfilming, the two sides will consider the possibility of sharing expertise in documenting arts, production of cultural resources, cataloguing, indexing and library services.

"Both sides will promote the conservation, study and diffusion of historic artistic heritage, their respective countries and, in particular, Portuguese and Indo-Portuguese heritage in Indian and Portugal," the agreement said.

The two sides expressed an interest in exchanging experts in architecture and archaeological heritage, preservation and restoration of monuments, it said.

In a significant gesture before coming to Delhi to sign an extradition treaty, President Anibal Cavaco Silva and de Lima stopped over in Goa, an erstwhile Portuguese colony that has an exotic combination of Konkan and Portuguese cultural and architectural heritage.