World Heritage Day

• 18 Apr 2020

• Every year 18^th April is celebrated as the International Day for Monuments and Sites or the World Heritage Day.
  
  • The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) established the day in 1982 and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) approved it in 1983.
• Since then, it has been a day to celebrate and promote cultural heritage, and an opportunity to raise awareness about its diversity, its relevance, how vulnerable it can be and what the needs and benefits of its conservation are.
• Theme for 2020: Shared Cultures, Shared Heritage, Shared Responsibility.
  
  • It is an important expression of global unity in the face of the ongoing worldwide health crisis (Covid-19 pandemic).

International Council on Monuments and Sites

• It is a global non-governmental organization associated with UNESCO.
• Its mission is to promote the conservation, protection, use and enhancement of monuments, building complexes and sites.
• It is an Advisory Body of the World Heritage Committee for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention of UNESCO.
  
  • As such, it reviews the nominations of cultural world heritage and ensures the conservation status of properties.
    
    • India has 38 world heritage sites that include 30 Cultural properties, 7 Natural properties and 1 mixed site.
• Its creation in 1965 is the logical outcome of initial conversations between architects, historians and international experts that began in the early twentieth century and that materialized in the adoption of the Venice Charter in 1964.