ANRF has selected 10 institutions for Convergence Research Centres of Excellence, including an NIT Agartala project focused on Northeast folklore and digital humanities.
New Delhi, May 20: The Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) has selected 10 institutions across India for establishing Convergence Research Centres of Excellence (CoEs), with one of the selected projects placing a strong focus on preserving and digitally promoting the folklore traditions of Northeast India, particularly Manipur and Tripura.
According to a statement issued by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) on Wednesday, the initiative is aimed at encouraging multidisciplinary research by integrating science and technology with social sciences and humanities to address complex societal challenges.
Among the selected institutions, the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Agartala secured a place under the “Digital Humanities” thematic category for its project titled “AI-assisted Digital Curation and Global Promotion of North-East Indian Folklore: A Focus on Manipur and Tripura".
The selection is being seen as significant for the Northeast region, especially at a time when concerns over preservation of indigenous languages, oral histories, traditional music, folk narratives, and cultural identity continue to grow amid rapid digital transformation and social change.
The ANRF said the programme seeks to establish pioneering research centres capable of combining expertise from multiple disciplines. The selected centres are expected to bring together social sciences, humanities, science, and technology to create integrated research solutions with wider social relevance.
For NIT Agartala, the project represents an important expansion beyond conventional engineering and technical education into the domain of cultural preservation and digital heritage research. The proposed work is expected to use artificial intelligence-assisted tools to document, curate, preserve, and globally showcase folklore traditions from the Northeast.
The source specifically mentioned that the project would focus on Manipur and Tripura, two states with rich oral storytelling traditions, indigenous performance practices, folk songs, ritual narratives, and linguistic diversity.
Observers say such initiatives could help create structured digital archives for endangered oral traditions and local cultural knowledge systems that are often transmitted informally across generations.
The inclusion of Manipur in the project is also notable given the state's longstanding literary, musical, and theatrical heritage. Manipuri folklore includes a wide range of oral epics, indigenous myths, folk songs, ritual chants, martial traditions, storytelling forms, and community memory preserved through generations in both hill and valley regions.
In recent years, scholars and cultural workers in the Northeast have repeatedly raised concerns about the gradual disappearance of many traditional oral narratives due to urbanisation, migration, changing lifestyles, and declining intergenerational transmission.
The use of AI-assisted digital curation may help organise large collections of audio, video, and textual cultural material in searchable and accessible formats. Experts believe emerging technologies can also assist in translation, transcription, restoration of old recordings, metadata generation, and multilingual dissemination of indigenous knowledge.
While the source did not provide financial details or implementation timelines for the projects, it stated that the programme received an overwhelming response from institutions across the country, with 945 proposals submitted for consideration.
The selected Centres of Excellence span multiple thematic areas including archaeology, traditional knowledge systems, digital humanities, rural development, health and psychology, emerging technologies for social issues, and computational economics.
Other selected institutions include IIT Gandhinagar, IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, IIT Dharwad, IIM Jammu, NIAS Bengaluru, Institute for Human Development Delhi, Chanakya University, and PSGR Krishnammal College for Women.
According to the ANRF, the programme draws inspiration from the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which advocates multidisciplinary education and stronger integration across knowledge domains. The initiative is also aligned with the broader vision of “Viksit Bharat 2047".
The PIB statement said the programme aims to address regional and national challenges through holistic approaches by combining scientific depth with contextual and social understanding. It added that technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and big data analytics could open new pathways for socioeconomic development and support sustainable development goals.
For institutions in the Northeast, the selection of the NIT Agartala-led project is being viewed as recognition of the region’s cultural diversity and knowledge systems within the national research ecosystem.
The project could also create opportunities for collaboration among researchers, linguists, folklorists, technologists, and cultural practitioners from Manipur, Tripura, and other parts of the Northeast.
Educational institutions in the region have increasingly been attempting to combine technology and cultural research in recent years, especially in areas such as language documentation, indigenous ecological knowledge, folk music preservation, and digital archiving.
If implemented effectively, the initiative may help bring several lesser-known folklore traditions from the Northeast into wider national and international academic and cultural discussions.
The ANRF stated that the programme encourages both intra-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary collaboration involving universities, technical institutions, publicly funded research organisations, and private institutions.
