India

The World Heritage Sites listing by The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) aims to promote awareness and preservation of tangible and intangible cultural heritage around the world, considered to have outstanding value for all humanity, irrespective of location. UNESCO has inscribed 38 such sites in India, all of which are presented in this volume, together with commentary by architects and conservationists and stunning photographs by Rohit Chawla. The cultural sites in India are a rich repository of the country's long, layered history, bearing witness to the creativity and influence of multiple communities, crafts and religions. The sites covered in this volume range across the length and breadth of India-from the earliest periods of rock art, Buddhist caves and Hindu temples, Sultanate and Mughal forts, palaces, tombs and memorials, medieval Hindu and Islamic cities, step-wells and observatories to Portuguese churches, Victorian and Art Deco ensembles to, finally, 20th-century industrial and modern heritage sites. The natural and mixed sites include national parks of exceptional natural beauty and sites of long interaction between people and the landscape.

Dr. Shikha Jain has worked on several nomination dossiers for India and other Asian countries. She was Member Secretary of the Advisory Committee on World Heritage Matters to the Ministry of Culture, India, from 2011-15, during its elected term in the World Heritage Committee. She has worked as a consultant to UNESCO New Delhi on specific missions. She is currently Asia-specific Coordinator for ICOFORT, ICOMOS; UNESCO Visiting Fellow at C2C, Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun; Haryana State Convener of INTACH and Founder Director, DRONAH. She has a post-graduate degree in Community Design and Preservation from Kansas University, USA and a doctorate in architectural history from De Montford University, UK. Vinay Sheel Oberoi is a retured IAS Officer, of the 1979 batch of the Assam-Meghalaya Cadre. Oberoi also served as the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of India to UNESCO from 2010 to 2014. He was the Secretary to the Government of India in the Union ministries of Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development as well as the Ministry of Women and Child Development. More recently, he is involved in an advisory role on several Central Ministry Government Committees. He has a post-graduate degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics. Rohit Chawla is one of India's leading contemporary photographers. As the erstwhile Group Creative Director for the India Today Group and Open magazine, he has conceptualised and photographed over 300 magazine covers. He has had several solo exhibitions across the world and has also done three coffee table books.