India, US Sign Cultural Property Agreement For Antique Objects Retrieval

Culture secretary Govind Mohan and Eric Garcetti, US ambassador to India, signed the agreement in the presence of Union minister of culture and tourism Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.

The Cultural Property Agreement (CPA) is aligned with the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the “Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, to which both countries are parties.”.

The illicit trafficking of cultural property is a longstanding issue that has affected many cultures and countries throughout history. A large number of antiquities have been smuggled out of India before the ratification of the 1970 UNESCO Convention, which are now housed in various museums, institutions, and private collections across the world.