PM Modi reviews artifacts retrieved from Australia ahead of his meet with Morrison
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviewed 29 artifacts that India retrieved from Australia on Monday. The artifacts are reportedly centuries-old, which were stolen from India but now have been retrieved from Australia.
PM Modi was found to have been reviewing these artifacts ahead of his virtual meet with Australia counterpart Scott Morrison. The prime ministers reportedly discussed building a stronger strategic partnership while also reviewing the progress under several initiatives under the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between India and Australia.
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An official from the PMO stated that the retrieval of these stolen artifacts is an effort that is being made under the government’s initiative of getting back all the stolen heritage sculptures and paintings from other nations that originally belonged to India.
“The process kicked into motion the moment the authorities were made aware that the artifacts were purchased by Australia. It took almost a year to repatriate these stolen artifacts,” said another official who is familiar with the latest development in the matter.
The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) received these stolen artifacts last week and they were put into display only recently. There are many crucial artifacts included in the list such as Shiva Bhairava, which is a 9th – 10th century CE sandstone sculpture from Rajasthan.
There is a painting of Shiva and Parvati from 1830-40, belonging to Kangra in Himachal Pradesh along with some other important things. Out of these, several went missing 53 years ago. The Indian government has been trying to recover such artifacts for years now. Til now it has recovered 241 artifacts since1972 and majority of them were recovered in the last eight years from the UK, Singapore, Germany, Canada, the US and Australia.
