Pics by Hemanath Padubidri

Udupi, Aug 3: Usha Suresh, director of the Directorate of Archives, Bangalore, on Saturday urged the students to show more interest in the study of manuscripts and old documents.

She was speaking after inaugurating a two-day seminar on “Poetics, development of Kannada script and study of inscriptions”, organised by the University Grants Commission and the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (MGM) College as part of the diamond jubilee celebrations of the college, here. Ms. Suresh said that there were a number of job opportunities in research of old documents. Teachers should encourage students in this regard. The directorate had digitised many old documents and put them on the Internet to help research scholars. Students did not know the difference between manuscripts, archaeology and museums.

It had rare documents such as those relating to Rani Chennamma of Kittur, the agreement signed between Tipu Sultan and the British, and the Mysore Maharajas, she said. The directorate had documents which were 300 years old. They were being preserved in a scientific manner. It had recorded the voices of 100 eminent persons of the State. It would be documenting the research materials available at the Rashtrakavi Govinda Pai Samshodhana Kendra at Udupi.

It would help foreign scholars, who visited Bangalore for research