Seven products from across India, including four from Rajasthan, were given the Geographical Indication (GI) tag by the Geographical Indications Registry in Chennai. The GI tags were secured by ‘Jalesar Dhatu Shilp’ (a metal craft), ‘Goa Mankurad Mango’, ‘Goan Bebinca’, ‘Udaipur Koftgari Metal Craft’, ‘Bikaner Kashidakari Craft’, ‘Jodhpur Bandhej Craft’, and ‘Bikaner Usta Kala Craft’.
The application for the mankurad mango was filed by the All Goa Mango Growers Association, Panaji. This variety of mango is also known as malcorada, cardozo mankurad, corado, and Goa mankur. The Portuguese named the fruit malcorada, which means ‘poor coloured’, and with time, it became mankurad aamo (mango) in Konkani.
The application for the Goan bebinca was filed by the All Goa Bakers and Confectioners Association. Bebinca, also known as the ‘queen of Goan desserts’, is a traditional Indo-Portuguese pudding.
At Jalesar in Uttar Pradesh’s Etah district, once the capital of Magadha king Jarasandha, over 1,200 small units are engaged in making ‘Jalesar Dhatu Shilp’, including ghungrus (anklets), ghantis (bells) and other decorative metal craft and brassware. The Thatheras community, which resides in a mohalla (locality) named Hathuras, makes these products.
Rajathan’s crafts
Among the four different crafts from Rajasthan given GI tags is ‘Udaipur Koftgari Metal Craft’. According to the documents submitted to the GI Registry, weapons are exquisitely ornamented by a complicated process of etching designs, heating, and then cooling, intertwined with embedding gold and silver wire into the metal, pressing and flattening it to a smooth surface with moonstone, and finally polishing it.
The GI tag has also been secured by the ‘Bikaner Kashidakari Craft’ traditionally created on cotton, silk or velvet with a variety of fine stitches and mirror-work, mainly for objects associated with marriage, especially gift items. The mirrors are believed to repel the ‘evil eye’ with their reflective surfaces. The weaving of fabrics by hand used to be done by the Meghwal community in Bikaner and nearby districts.
The ‘Jodhpur Bandhej Craft’ is the Rajasthani art of tying and dyeing. Bandhej is one of the most famous textile art forms of Rajasthan. The fabrics used for Bandhej are muslin, silk and voile. Cotton thread is used for tying the fabric.
The ‘Bikaner Usta Kala Craft’ is also known as gold nakashi or gold manauti work due to the prominence of its long-lasting golden colour. Untreated raw camel hide is processed and moulded by the Dapgar community of leather craftspeople for the requirements of the Usta.
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