New Delhi: The government will soon create an online repository called IKS Wiki to provide information on topics related to India’s traditional knowledge and culture to the general public, which will also involve students through an internship programme to contribute and engage with it, an official said.

“It will be an authentic library for Bharatiya gyan parampara, or Indian knowledge systems, which will be accessible to everyone in the world,” said Ganti S Murthy, national coordinator of the Indian Knowledge Systems division of the education ministry. “With that intent, the division has also launched an internship programme for students to contribute and be involved in the development of IKS Wiki.”

The IKS division was established by the ministry as an innovation cell at the All India Council for Technical Education in 2020 to promote interdisciplinary research on aspects of indigenous knowledge. The idea behind starting the IKS Wiki is to provide information in a simplified language that can be understood by the common people, the official said. It will carry articles in multiple Indian languages as well as in English, Murthy said.

To be sure, Wikipedia, the world’s largest free online encyclopedia, has extensive entries on Indian civilisation, religion, philosophy and culture. There are other such repositories as well, such as Bharatpedia, which is curated by a private foundation. IKS Wiki, however, would be the first such state-sponsored initiative.

During the internship, students can also contribute in the form of the artwork, including pictures, sketches, multimedia, including cartoons, graphics for use by the IKS community and common readers at large, the division said in a document released earlier this week, in which “oral traditions of Bharat” will receive priority.

“The IKS Internship programme is designed to encourage and enthuse youth to take up deeper study of various topics related to IKS, preferably in Bharatiya bhashas (Indian languages). IKS Wiki must be an important tool for it,” the document said. “Therefore, the focus of this internship programme is to create opportunities for students to contribute and be involved in development of IKS Wiki during the summer breaks or anytime during the year.”

Each intern will be paid ₹1,000 per article upon their acceptance, it added.

Under the project, only topics related to the systematized knowledge that is created by Indians in the Indian subcontinent over millennia and has been transmitted through oral traditions, manuscripts, texts and traditional practices will be accepted, the document stated. “Articles solely based on modern knowledge systems and modern scientific methods and analysis do not qualify as IKS projects,” an official at the division said, seeking anonymity.

The last date for the students to apply for the internship is December 25. The names of those selected will be announced on January 5.