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Archives at NCBS

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Archives at NCBS

The Archives at NCBS aims to be a collecting archive for the history of contemporary biology in India.

20/08/2026

Some letters and writings from D D Kosambi at the archives before you attend the talk at NCBS today.

Credits:

Vijnan-Karmee : official organ of the Association of Scientific Workers of India: Vol. IV No. 10 October 1952, No. 11 November 1952, No. 12 December 1952, PMB-DOC-12-1-98-4, Vijnan-Karmee, Azim Premji University Archives.

Vijnan-Karmee : Journal of the Association of Scientific Workers of India: Vol. XVIII No. 6 June 1966, No. 7-8 July-August 1966, No. 9 September 1966, PMB-DOC-12-1-105-4, Vijnan-Karmee, Azim Premji University Archives.

Postcards to K S Krishnan, D D, MS-024-6-3-16-66, K S Krishnan Papers, Archives at NCBS.

Talk details:

Public Lecture by Prof. Ramakrishna Ramaswamy discussing "D.D. Kosambi: One Life, Many Worlds" a deeply researched biography that draws on Kosambi's letters, journal entries, family accounts, and unprecedented archival material.

📆 Thursday, August 20, 2026, 04:00 PM
📍 Dasheri Auditorium, NCBS

31/07/2026

The archives crew is away at a workshop! We will be closed for public visits till 2nd August 🌸

20/07/2026

Read our new blog post where a scientist, a researcher, and a historian dissect the figures and annotations from a neurobiologist's archival papers.

https://thesilverfish.archives.ncbs.res.in/2026/07/20/__annotatedmap/

13/07/2026

Glimpses from the first of three talks by Dr. Samira Sheikh as part of the Obaid Siddiqi Lectures 2026!

Her lecture at NCBS reconstructed the missing archive of early modern mapping in western India and placed it within histories of viewing, measuring, and making.

Catch her second lecture at NLSIU on 16th July, 5.30pm titled "Walking the Dotted Line: Mapping Borders Before the Nation". The lecture will explore the work of pioneer mapmaker Sadanand, to understand when political boundaries began to appear in Indian cartography and when mapping became newly legal, administrative, and extractive.

Register here: https://bit.ly/nlsiu-register

25/06/2026

The Obaid Siddiqi Lectures 2026,
National Centre for Biological Sciences - NCBS

A lecture in three parts by Samira Sheikh

The Mughal Map Mystery
Friday, July 10, 2026, 5:30 PM - NCBS, Bangalore

Walking the Dotted Line: Mapping Borders Before the Nation
Thursday, July 16, 2026, 5:30 PM -
National Law School of India University
(registration required)

Secrets and Lines: A Short History of Boundaries in India
Sunday, July 19, 2026, 5.30 PM -
Bangalore International Centre

Registration and other details here: https://ncbs.res.in/events/osl-ss

Poster Design by Megha Ramachandra

05/06/2026

Many years before her passing, Jamal Ara had gathered her ornithological notes and manuscripts and locked it in a wooden cabinet at her home in Ranchi. Almost 30 years later, writer and wildlife historian Raza Kazmi approached Jamal Ara's daughter Madhuca, for an article on her mother's life and work. As their conversations grew, so did the mystery around what may be inside the almirah. In his article for The Silverfish, Raza Kazmi recalls the looming presence of this almirah, as it draws both Madhuca and Raza into a curious dizzy on whether it should be opened. And if they do open it, what would they find? Would it change the way they see the past?

Read the full article here: https://thesilverfish.archives.ncbs.res.in/2026/06/05/the-almirah-in-search-of-jamal-aras-papers/

13/05/2026

What's in the pages that don't get digitised? Anjana T returns to the archives storage to examine pages from a 1970s newsletter kept by a hematologist and picks at the pages that weren't digitised for posterity.

Read full article here: https://thesilverfish.archives.ncbs.res.in/2025/12/04/out-of-focus/

08/05/2026

The Archives at NCBS is currently hosting 'Beyond Treatment: Rethinking Conservation in Archives', an exhibition curated by the Conservation Team at the Archives at NCBS.

The exhibition explores conservation beyond repair and preservation, inviting visitors to think about care, material histories, and the many ways archival objects continue to live and change over time.

🗓 Exhibition dates: 27 February 2026 – 3 June 2026

If you’d like to visit the exhibition during this period, please write to us.

We’re also hosting a few open days for the public where you can simply walk in, no registration required.

📍 Open Days
• 16 May 2026
• 23 May 2026
• 30 May 2026

⏰ 11 AM – 2 PM

Come by, explore the exhibition, and spend some time with the archives.

07/05/2026

A few materials from our newest collections. Swipe through to take a closer look at a select few objects.

2. Two decades before physicist Matthew Pothen Thekaekara published his seminal work standardising the solar constant at NASA in 1970, he was vacationing in France, just after being ordained at a seminary in Darjeeling. Although not many papers from that trip survived, here is a map that he had collected during his travels. Bonus points if you can find the number of croissants featured.

Souvenir -- Map of france, MS-048-8-2-10-8, Matthew Pothen Thekaekara Papers, Archives at NCBS.

3. Founded in Delhi in 1981, Saheli Women’s Resource Centre is a feminist collective and an important part of India’s autonomous women’s movement. Their work has focused on challenging violence, discrimination, coercive health policies, communalism, caste-based oppression, and state repression, while standing in solidarity with LGBTQIA+ communities and broader struggles for justice and equality. Saheli continues today as a non-funded feminist collective. The materials at our Archives from this collection range from Saheli's newsletters and health reports to souvenir booklets both in English and Hindi.

Souvenirs, MS-060-1-11-7-5, Saheli Papers, Archives at NCBS.

4 and 5. In 2025, The University of Hawai'i announced a de-accessioning program for 535 titles from its Science and Technology serials from South Asia. The Archives at NCBS identified a few titles for physical and digital preservation and were brought to its repository in Bangalore. Two among them were the Journal of the Association of Scientific Workers of India and the Journal of Association of Medical Women in India. These journals capture not only the work and ideas of individuals across the various structures and disciplines of science, but also moments from post-independence India.

Cover of a Journal of the Association of Scientific Workers of India. Vijnan-Karmee: Vol. XX, No. 7, July 1968, BB-013-5-0-2-26, Archives at NCBS.

Association of Medical women in India: Journal: Vol.71, No. 3, Sept-Dec 1981, BB-014-2-0-1-6, Archives at NCBS.

08/04/2026

In the early 2000s, a group of biologists from TIFR and Porto Novo travelled along the coastlines of India collecting cone snail shells and dissecting the venom duct to study conotoxins. Two decades later, letters, notes, and photographs related to this project were processed at the Archives at NCBS.

In a recent interview, Mani Ramaswami, a biologist who was deeply involved in the project along with a colleague and friend, K S Krishnan, looks at the material and reflects on what it means to find collaborators and do biology on a beach.

Read the full article on The Silverfish
https://thesilverfish.archives.ncbs.res.in/2026/04/07/chasing-conotoxins/

Address

National Centre For Biological Sciences
Bangalore
560065

Opening Hours

Monday	10am - 5:30pm
Tuesday	10am - 5:30pm
Wednesday	10am - 5:30pm
Thursday	10am - 5:30pm
Friday	10am - 5:30pm

Telephone

+918067176011

Website

http://archives.ncbs.res.in/

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