On May 7, the Government of India gave two great reasons to rejoice on the 152nd birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore. The first welcome announcement is that his entire literary oeuvre will be available online as Bichitra, which will be an online electronic variorum that will aid readers and scholars in accessing as well as comparing all his works including manuscripts and different editions in form of digital prints. The website announces it as a “humane application of technology”, which will be available in both Bengali as well as English.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh admires an exhibition, titled The Master’s Strokes: Art of Rabindranath Tagore after inaugurating it at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi, in 2010. File Pic; (below) A portrait of Bengali poet, Rabindranath Tagore. Pic/AFP