SHILLONG: The two-day North-East India Archive Summit was successfully held on July 19 and 20 at St. Anthony’s College, Shillong.
Organised by the Department of Mass Media, the summit commenced with an inauguration programme that included the Principal, Br. Albert L Dkhar’s address and a presentation by Nathaniel N Majaw, Project Director of The North East Archive, highlighting the importance of the yet to be launched North East India Archive.
Yui Nakamura, Senior Programme Officer, Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Japan spoke about the role of her foundation in the setting up of the archive.
This was followed by two sessions with the first centering on archiving in photography moderated by Fr. D John Jayakumar, founder of the Mass media Departmentand included Ahmed Hussain, Ashok Elwin, Kyntiewbor War, Ian Lyngdoh, Promise Tamang, Conrad Syiem and Elyon Blah.
The session commenced with the Head of the Department of Cultural and Creative Studies, NEHU, Desmond Kharmawphlang’s address on the importance of documenting oral cultures and archives.
The post lunch session was on archiving in films moderated by Ian Lyngdoh and included Alan Kharkongor, Kyntiewbor War, Geoffrey Basan and well known filmmaker Dominic Sangma.
The second day of the summit started with a thematic session on archiving in sound as a medium of communication moderated by Donboklang Ryntathiang, and included Rudy Wallang, Ferdy A Dkhar, Lennard Phawa, K Mark Swer followed by a session on archiving of news and events moderated by RG Lyngdoh, former Home Minister and veteran news journalist Billy Domes, Savio Diengdoh, Zorba Laloo, Ahmed Hussain and Rikynti Marwein.
This was followed by a round table discussion on archives and a sense of history moderated by Tarun Bhartiya with David R Syiemlieh, former Chairman of Union Public Service Commission, New Delhi, delivering a key-note address and included Rev. K Pyrtuh, Br. MA Abraham, Fr. PV Joseph, Sweety Diengdoh and Khasimon Phanbuh.
Andrew May, historian at the University of Melbourne also joined the discussion through video conferencing.
The two day summit ended with the declaration of ‘The North East India Archive Charter’ by Nathaniel.
With a number of eminent personalities present who have contributed much to their fields, the two-day event ended with salient matters of concern that the setting up of the due to be launched Northeast archive could consider in its future course of action.
