M A I N   N E W S

India buys Gandhi letters for $ 1.28m
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 10
The Government today said it had bought the Gandhi-Kallenbach Archives — a collection of letters, papers, photographs and other material related to Mahatma Gandhi — for $1.28 million and the entire lot has been withdrawn from the proposed auction by Sotheby's in London.

Culture Minister Kumari Selja said the acquired material would be housed in the National Archives of India. The government attached the highest importance to archival materials and artefacts relating to the leaders of the national movement, she added.

The agreement was finalised in consultation with the Ministry of External Affairs and the NAI and signed by the three parties concerned - the Government of India, Sotheby's and the Sarid family.

The collection, which belonged to German Jewish architect and bodybuilder Hermann Kallenbach, a close friend of Gandhi, was to have been auctioned by Sotheby's today.