The Global Engagement Scheme of the Ministry of Culture aims to promote India's rich cultural heritage internationally and enhance India's global image.

Objectives of the scheme:

i) Strengthening cultural ties with foreign nations.

ii) Promoting bilateral cultural contacts.

iii) Projecting India's cultural identity on the world stage.

iv) Encouraging inbound tourism.

The Global Engagement Scheme is administered through Indian Missions abroad.

It has three components:

i) Festival of India: The artists, practicing Indian art forms, are given opportunity to perform abroad under the banner of ‘Festival of India’ (FoI). The artists from diverse cultural fields such as folk art including folk music, folk dance, folk theatre & puppetry, classical and traditional dance, experimental/contemporary dance, classical/semi-classical music, theatre, etc perform in the ‘Festivals of India’ abroad. Under this component, all expenditure on deputation of an artist for performing is incurred by the government. Ministry of Culture has empanelled artists/groups from all over India under various art forms and artists are selected from the empanelled list for deputing to perform in the Festivals of India abroad. During 2013-14 to 2023-24, a total of 62 FoIs have been held in different countries. As many as 2,348 artists have participated in these FoIs.

ii) Grant in aid to Indo Foreign Friendship Cultural Societies: Grant in aid is released to Indo Foreign Friendship Cultural Societies actively functioning in foreign countries through Indian missions with the object of fostering closer friendship and cultural contacts between India and foreign country concerned.

iii) Contribution Grant to International Organisations: Funds are released to international organisations of which India is a member. India is member state of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and is a part of several important cultural conventions of UNESCO such as 1972 Convention on World Heritage, 2003 Convention for Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN), Memory of the World (MOW) Programme. India is also a member of inter-governmental organisations like International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) among others.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)