Besides, we are also in talks with the Indian government to explore the needs for training and workshops on adaptive reuse of heritage buildings for sustainable tourism in Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai,' Daniel said.

In 2007, the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach) organised a three-day seminar on managing and conserving cultural heritage in India with AusHeritage following which both signed an MoU (memorandum of understanding) for the promotion of heritage in South Asia. 'Since then, we have been working with Intach and also with the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts,' the chairman of AusHeritage said.

Daniel said India had the 'strength to add more capacity to its museums and that Indian universities could include heritage studies in its regular module'.

The Australian network is working with Chennai-based Hindustan University for education programmes in heritage and conservation designed towards better delivery initiatives and is building skilled museum faculties, Daniel said.

'The whole art of museuology is changing dramatically. The focus has shifted from the 'I am curator and I know best' attitude to the third party who is either using the museum as a resource base or a visitor. The ownership is back to the people. Every museum has been going through changes and reaching out to people. More and more museums are putting their collections on the Internet and in the process becoming more responsive to what the audience wants. But each country has its own culture. They may not necessarily choose the western model to make the changes happen,' Daniel said.

'The three new idioms for museums of the future were more access, learning to operate on limited institutional or government funding and looking for new revenue-generating avenues, and finally, authorship -- who tells the story in the museum,' Daniel said.

(Madhusree Chatterjee can be contacted at madhu.c@ians.in)