Campaign - Back to books!
Mukesh Bansal
Dear Friends, Namaskar!
I would need your views on this. If BM can take up this task, it would have a lot of good impact on society. People do care about what IIT/IIM guys tell them.
I think BM (central team as well as chapters) can take up the task of developing reading habit among Indians. There may not be two opinions about the usefulness of books in opening our minds, but unfortunately reading habit has reduced a lot especially after the advent of television.
Another purpose of this task may be to develop the literature in Indian languages. Books in Indian languages are not available everywhere, while the books in English language are largely available everywhere. To develop reading habit in Indians, we have to make the books available in their own language (Fact: Less than 5% Indians can understand English).
One more purpose that can be fulfilled through this campaign is to create awareness about environmental issues, and motivate literacy campaigns.
What we can do (Raw Ideas):
1. Start a group/society affiliated to BM, that will start small libraries througout India.
2. Each chapter will be encouraged to start one or more libraries in their locality.
3. The members of libraries will spend 2-4 hours per week for Shram-Daan to raise money in order to purchase books for their library. Some ideas of Shram-Daan: Develop websites in Indian languages (Using Unicode), Prepare paper bags with newspapers, teaching youngsters/adults - basic literacy/mathematic/computer etc.
4. The central society may send some money to libraries if they are indulged in voluntary service without monetory gains.
5. All these libraries will be linked together, and will be available on internet. The members may search for a book in all libraries and may raise request for a book of his choice on internet. (This will ensure that people will have access to a bigger set of books - they are not limited to their own small library).
We may rank the libraries as per following criteria:
1. 100+ books with >90% books in Indian language - Gyan Nidhi 'K'
2. 100+ books with >50% books in Indian language - Gyan Nidhi 'Kha'
3. 100+ books with <50% books in Indian language - Gyan Nidhi 'Ga'
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"We have only one passion,
The rise of a great nation."
Shubham
Mukesh Bansal