User:GuJi and GuaGua/sandbox

= Project Mausam =

Description
Project Mausam is a financial and cultural project from Ministry of Culture in India with Archaeological Society of India (ASI), while India Gandhi National Centre is for the Arts and New Delhi for its research issues. Originally, the idea of Project Mausam was proposed by Ravindra Singh who was the secretary of Cultural Ministry in India. Afterwards, the India government was planning to nominate the project as a transnational inscription on the World Heritage List of The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In India, "Mausam" means the season when boats can sail safely. Indian government is going to take advantage of this project to bring economic benefits in the future.

= Objectives and Visions = Project Mausam aims to re-build maritime and economic connects with 39 countries in the Indian Ocean world, including Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Comoros, Egypt, Eritrea, Réunion, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Kenya, Lebanon, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritius, Mozambique, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, United Republic of Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Viet Nam, Yemen. The project also aims to collate historical and archaeology researches to record the diversity of economic, cultural and religious interactions between countries in the Indian Ocean world. There are two main visions of Project Mausam, the first one is to understand national cultures between countries while the second one is to re-build communications between countries in the Indian Ocean world. = Historical Background = Indian Ocean stretches the whole Antarctic and forms a confluence with the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea in the north, with touching India and Sri Lanka in the south. In fact, Indian Ocean is the only ocean named after a country in the world, this brings India historic significance and places it in a favorable situation. India has a long history of maritime which begins the 3rd millennium BCE when residents in Indus valley began ocean trading with Mesopotamia. Afterwards, India controlled the ocean until the 13th century without foreign power influencing during that time period. However, after the 13th century, the economic structure of India changed due to the control of the sea by foreign power. The economy of India depended on foreign businesses after European powers controlled Indian Ocean sea routes, for example, Indian Ocean had been controlled by British power until World War I at which Germany took over the sea and Japanese power took over at World War II.

= Achievement and Development = There are some achievements of Project Mausam. Firstly, there was a publication called Maritime cultural landscapes across the Indian Ocean by Prof. Secondly, there were 19 lectures about Project Mausam held in a range of themes. Thirdly, there was an exhibition called "A re-discovery in the IGNCA held in India from October to November in 2014 with one day conference. Fourthly, there was a national conference about maritime trade routes organized by Kerala Tourism and ASI in Kochi in 2014 and the topic was related to Project Mausam. Fifthly, there was an exhibition called "Histories, Cultures and Crossings" in the Indian national museum in 2014. In 2015, there was a conference discussing Indian ocean perspective. In 2016, ASI and IGNCA held an international conference about maritime routes at 16/2/2016 in Mumbai. In 2016, the director of World Heritage came to several asian countries to explore the potential of Project Mausam. At 28/1/2017, there was a conference about Indian maritime culture and the potential of that. At 22/3/2018, a conference about traditions of Indian maritime was held in Kerala and this lasted two days. There were about Rs 152,445,021 which was a fund allocation approved by SFC for the development of Project Mausam from 2015 to 2017 and Rs 4,208,341of them has been used. Meanwhile, a further fund of Rs 60,039,297 has been approved to help the project extend up to 2020.

= Commentary = According to Pillalamarri, Project Mausam is the answer of India to the Maritime Silk Road of China. "China is developing MSR in the backyard of India with strong support from Sri Lanka and the Maldives. India is planning to join the MSR for its potential economic benefits in the future, however, it should also develop its own strategy for the future."

According to Sharma, Project Mausam can hit Chinese project. "China has stopped spanning in the process of Project Mausam which is an Indian maritime project after blocking its demand to declare that Masood Azhar is an international terrorist at the UN." According to an officer of cultural ministry, Indian government has been trying to move UNESCO in order to achieve a transnational heritage status for Project Mausam while China has been countering India on the pretext which will affect its purpose to revive the Maritime Silk Road.

According to Seethi, due to the increasing significance and influence of China, especially in building new maritime connects, India launched Project Mausam in order to balance the increasing influence of China in the Indian Ocean world and revive historical ties in a new sustainable cross-cultural connections.

= Reference =