The Hindu : New Delhi News : Transcending boundaries to embellish thoughts

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Wednesday, Feb 06, 2008
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Transcending boundaries to embellish thoughts

Books are undoubtedly a repository of information and knowledge. The 21st Century has been widely acclaimed as the “knowledge era” and the National Knowledge Commission has to find ways to provide education to each and every citizen of the country. At a seminar on “National Knowledge Commission: A Futuristic View” at the ongoing World Book Fair at Delhi’s Pragati Maidan on Tuesday, Afro-Asian Book Council secretary-general Sukumar Das said the scope for books was no longer confined to a province or a nation.

Expansion in store

“The exigencies of circumstances demand that it should transcend our geographic boundaries. Books need to embellish our thoughts and expressions, widen our mental horizon and make our lives sublime. Scholars, intellectuals and professionals in every country have been attempting books almost in every gamut of life and publishers have been providing almost every year millions of new publications.”

National Knowledge Commission member Jayati Ghosh said if even a part of the Commission’s recommendation gets implemented then a huge expansion is in store across the country: “It is important to inculcate the reading habit among our people. We have recommended setting up of a National Translation Mission in which bi-lingual people will receive training in literary textbooks. We should have journals and training manuals in different regional languages. I understand that the quality of education might get affected due to the huge expansion, but we must be prepared for this. Even when the U.K. was expanding its education in the 1960s, not all colleges were like Oxford and Cambridge.”

Stating that libraries have a social role of disseminating knowledge, Working Group on Libraries, National Knowledge Commission chairperson Kalpana Dasgupta said the library sector in the country was scattered.

“Everyone is working in isolation and libraries are our last priorities. Nobody in this country knows how many libraries there are. We need a complete overhauling in this sector.”

National Knowledge Commission executive director Sunil Bahri was the chief guest at the seminar.

Madhur Tankha

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