President of India Pranab Mukherjee will inaugurate a research and archives centre on Mahatma Gandhi at Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad which houses the world’s largest collection of letters and work of an individual under one-roof on Tuesday.
The research and archive centre contains originals of letters and works of Mahatma Gandhi. The centre at Ashram would transcribe and publish over 9,000 letters and other communications to Mahatma. The fire and earthquake resistant archival vault at the new centre would also be linked to over 47,000 titles housed in collection at Sabarmati Ashram, including rare books, first editions and books written by Gandhiji’s close associates like Miraben, diaries of Manu Gandhi and selected works of CF Andrews.
“These letters, mainly in English, Gujarati and Hindi, would be transcribed and digitised. In all over 1.08 lakh pages of written material will be housed in this centre for researchers from all over the world to access. These will be other than Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CWMG),” Dr Tridip Suhrud, director of Sabarmati Ashram said, adding that the Sabarmati Ashram authority plans to upload these works on the Gandhi Heritage Portal which has over 7.75 lakh pages including audio and video resources helpful to researchers. The President will also deliver an address at the Ashram, he added.
Mukherjee in his maiden visit to Gujarat as the President of India will begin his three-day visit on Monday by addressing 62nd convocation ceremony of Gujarat Vidyapith, an education institute founded by Mahatma Gandhi in 1920. As many as 24 doctorates, 49 M Phil, 405 post graduates, 369 graduates and 59 post graduate diplomas will be awarded at the convocation to be addressed by the President. later on the day he will unveil India’s largest cattle feed plant of Amul Dairy (Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers’ Union ltd) at Kapadvanj around 90 km. from Ahmedabad.