AS broadcasting becomes increasingly digital, file footage can be harnessed to contextualise current events. For Doordarshan, the public broadcaster, DD Archives has been entrusted with the task of preserving its rich content by digitising it. All the recordings are at present in analog format. The recordings stored in tapes are the performances of some of the best artists in the country, many of them no longer alive.
Indeed, DD Archives is the only channel that has recognised the need to conserve various cultural trends, including classical music and dance; folk music and dance; tribal music and dance; life style; theatre, both traditional and modern; popular music and dance; literature, ancient and modern, and so on.
This content represents the pulsating cultural life of India. In the next five years DD Archives aims to be one of the best broadcasting archives in the world.
There are six centres concentrating on different zones. The Central Archives has precious holdings from all over the country, particularly programmes produced in Hindi and English. The other five are regional centres.
The South Archives, located in Hyderabad, has programmes produced in the major southern languages - Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu. The centre produces VCDs and ACDs as well.
The Western Archives is situated in Ahmedabad and takes care of Marathi, Gujarati, Konkani and other regional dialects.The Eastern Archives, in Kolkata, contains programmes produced in Oriya and Bangla and regional dialects.
The Northeastern Archives is located in Guwahati. It archives programmes produced in Assamese and all other languages of the region.The Northern Archives is in Jalandhar and looks after programmes produced in Punjabi, Kashmiri and Himachali and dialects.
A Special Correspondent
