The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : KBA plans ‘Pustaka Andolana’

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Monday, Jul 21, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

KBA plans ‘Pustaka Andolana’

M. Raghuram

Books will be given to slum children under the programme

Books will be distributed in Bangalore and
in border areas
Yeddyurappa thanked for promising support

Siddalingaiah

BANGALORE: The Kannada Book Authority (KBA) has embarked on an ambitious programme “Pustaka Andolana” to promote the reading habit among slum children.

Chairman of KBA Siddalingaiah has laid out a plan to “re-kindle the love of books among children” by distributing free Kannada books in slums

Speaking to The Hindu on the sidelines of a function here, Dr. Siddalingaiah said the Pustaka Andolana would feature free distribution of books written on achievers by well-known Kannada authors. Primarily, these books would be distributed in slums in the city and in the border areas.

Thanking Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa for the assurance that there would be “no dearth of funds” for the Pustaka Andolana, Dr. Siddlingaiah said: “Books were the agents of change; they give wider vision to the readers and make them role models in society”

Speaking on Ambedkar and his love for books, Dr. Siddalingaiah said he (Ambedkar) had Asia’s largest private collection of books.

“The collection had books was from all over the world. The Nizam of Hyderabad had offered Ambedkar a fabulous sum for his books, but he rejected it.”

Quoting Dhananjay Khir’s book “Life and Vision of Ambedkar”, Dr. Siddalingaiah said the saddest day in Ambedkar’s life was when a ship carrying a consignment of books ordered by him sank.

Dr. Siddalingaiah said whenever he visited Mumbai he would make it a point to go to Ambedkar’s house, “Rajagriha” at Matunga and look at the books the constitutional expert accumulated.

Dr. Siddalingaiah recalled how books had changed his life.

He said the wages he used to get from his part-time work in Bangalore were spent on books.

At the KBA “we wish to expand the vision and minds of the poor children in the slums, and also promote the habit of reading among the middle class and upper middle class children.

Work on Pustaka Andolana would begin as soon as a committee was constituted, he added.

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