National Council of Science Museums (NCSM), under the ministry of culture, is developing

Platinum Jubilee Museum at the Legislative Assembly, planning to complete within July-August.

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The museum will showcase the history of the Legislative Assembly.

An NCSM official said a team is working on it for the last eight to nine months. It started working right after the content was decided after talks with the state government officials.

Director general of NCSM AD Choudhury said, “A concept note was first created with all details and milestones following which the team, comprising curators from different disciplines, engineers, exhibition officers, who are commercial artists, started working.”

Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee said, “Work is still on. Though I do not have specific details with me right now the digitised museum will focus on the history of the state and the role of our freedom fighters. People will be able to visit the museum after getting permission from us.”

The Kolkata-based NCSM has planned to develop 60 innovation hubs in India, out of which 42 are operational. The innovation hubs have various sections like Build from Scratch (Kabad se Jugad), Idea Box, Break and Remake, Hall of Fame, Robotics etc.

“These hubs are generally attached to science centres. The young minds can come up with ideas and we help them execute them with the help of our mentors,” said the DG.

Every Innovation Hub also holds an innovation festival every year, where apart from in-house innovators, outside innovators are also invited to showcase their innovations. Mr Choudhury said the idea is to create more entrepreneurs. We need to have more entrepreneurs who can generate jobs, he said.

According to a senior officer, science centres at Bodh Gaya and Kottayam are ready and have been handed over to the respective state governments.

The central body is also building Science City at Guwahati and Hyderabad. At Guwahati, work is in progress, while NCSM is in talks with the Andhra Pradesh government for the Hyderabad one.

NCSM is also holding an international travelling exhibition, “Vaccines Injecting Hope”, in collaboration with Science Museum, London and with support from ICMR, Wellcome and other institutions. Right now, the exhibition is in New Delhi and after travelling across cities. It will reach Kolkata in April 2025 and will be on display at Science City, till September 2025. It covers the complete journey of the novel coronavirus, with its arrival, designing a new vaccine, trials, results and approvals, etc.