Preservation and Digitization of Manuscript Heritage

• India holds an estimated 10 million+ manuscripts — the world's largest such repository — covering scripts, languages and themes from across the subcontinent; their preservation is a Ministry of Culture mandate.
• The Gyan Bharatam Mission (GBM), announced in Union Budget 2025-26, is the flagship umbrella initiative replacing/subsuming earlier manuscript work and aims to survey, document, conserve, digitize and make accessible over 1 crore manuscripts.
• Examinable across GS-I (Culture) and GS-II (Government Schemes); a high-probability Prelims hook given Budget 2025-26 announcement.