National School of Drama (NSD), India's premier theatre training institute situated at New Delhi, India, is deemed university and an autonomous organization under Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India, set up in 1959 by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, and became an independent school in 1975. The origins of the school can be traced back to a seminar in 1954, where the idea of a Central institution for theatre was mooted, subsequently a draft scheme was prepared in 1955, and the Sangeet Natak Akademi, which had Jawaharlal Nehru as its president, started drawing plans for the institution. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Delhi, Bharatiya Natya Sangh (BNS) with assistance from UNESCO, independently established the 'Asian Theatre Institute' (ATI) on January 20, 1958, and in July 1958, ATI was taken over by the Sangeet Natak Akademi (SNA), India’s National Academy of Music, dance and drama of Government of India. In the following year, the government merged it with the newly founded school, and thus NSD was established in April 1959 under the auspices of Sangeet Natak Akademi.