The Rishihood University Central Library and Centre for Human Sciences at Rishihood University organized a webinar on India’s Traditional Knowledge and its relevance in the age of Digitisation on Thursday, 16th December 2021. The webinar aimed at providing an understanding of India’s Traditional Knowledge and its relevance in the age of Digitisation.

Dr Shubhash Kak addressed the issue of how we can make the Indian knowledge readily available to the young minds and how can libraries and books become centres for the seekers of truth and light. He explained how online portals like Wikipedia have been hijacked by groups with certain specific political affiliation and why we should be careful which accessing information from such portals, which are explicitly biased with regards to India and its culture. Emphasising upon the richness of Indian perspective regarding knowledge and truth, Prof Kak explained how, in the present times, the information we get from the sources like modern school textbooks, eg. NCERT books, are primarily eurocentric and do not do justice with the knowledge they try to propagate. He discussed in detail with respect to Srti AUrobindo’s thoughts how India as a civilization has the greatest creativity and explained how we can make the young generation aware of it. He suggested the introduction of two courses in schools, one for hard sciences and one for humanistic sciences and likewise introduce Ayurveda on Allopathic medicines while raising a very pertinent question that if America can have courses on complementary medicine then why can’t Indian institutions have such courses. But he emphasised that while there is a need to introduce specific courses, a lot of research needs to be done in modern terminology by bringing the terminology in modern discourse to have a wider reach.