Column | Window Seat

Window Seat | Mrinal Chatterjee

Of Books and Book lovers

We are not a book lover nation. Though with a Rs 269 billion book publication industry we are sixth in the world in terms of book business size, but as per the figures quoted by India Today (May 16, 2016) 93 per cent of the books sold are academic. The top three selling books in India are text books: one on Medical Pharmacology, one is Science for 9^th class and the third is Company Law.

There are over 9000 publishers, 21000 retailers publishing and selling books in over 1600 languages in this country which has over 90 crores literate persons. But of all the books sold 55 per cent are in English. Please note that only 2 per cent of our population knows how to read and write English. Among Indian languages, 35 per cent of books that are sold are in Hindi.

Another worrying fact is: sale of non-text books is coming down, drastically –a cross all languages, more so in regional languages. People are either reading from their hand held devices or not reading at all. A new word has been coined for such people- who can read but do not – alliterate. The trend is more prevalent in the youth, who should be reading more. As a result book publication industry is suffering a setback.

Another phenomenon, which is impacting the book publication industry adversely, is ‘author-publisher’. As the technicalities of book publication (composing the matter, layout, printing, binding, etc) have become accessible to common people thanks to the advancement of technology, the author is publishing his own books.  But without marketing network these books are not marketed properly. The end result is: most of the books are given to people for free or sold at a heavily discounted price. It is negatively impacting the publishing business environment, especially for the non-text segment.

It is time the industry majors seriously think about the future of this industry, which has brought in a major change in democratizing knowledge and thus in the development of the civilization post 15^th century.

Sambalpuri translation of Geetanjali

While talking about books, let me inform you that Sambalpuri translation of Ravindranath Tagore’s Nobel Prize winning poetry collection Geetanjali has been released.

Sambalpur based Muktakantha Pradhan has translated it from original Bengali. It has been published by Sikhya Prakashani, Bhubaneswar. Priced at Rs 100 this 120 page anthology has the English translation and Sambalpuri rendition.

Encroachment

Details of Mathura kaand is shocking. Till the time I am writing, 27 people have died.

Two questions that are being asked relating to the shocking and tragic incident: how can the quirky 'netaji' attract so many followers? And how can the administration sit idle when 270 acres of land in the city is encroached for over 2 years?

The answer to the second question is not very hard to find. Encroachment of Govt. land has become a menace across the country, especially in cities and towns. As people are migrating from villages to cities, real estate prices are going up. Land is the new gold. The easy way to grab Govt. land is to encroach it and hold it for some years. The poor people coming from rural areas do it. But more than the poor doing it land is grabbed by the local mafia, backed by political parties and they allow people coming from rural areas to settle there- obviously in exchange of money.  The encroachers get political support as the political parties/persons try to create and nurture their vote bank.  Thus slums grow overnight in prime Govt land. Backed by political parties, they stay put. In some cities eventually it is regularized. And that entice more people to encroach Govt land. As political parties and powerful political persons are involved in the encroachment, the administration often takes it easy and does not take action.

The menace is growing and has taken the form of an epidemic. It has to be curbed. Zero tolerance to encroachment should be the policy. That and prompt eviction and prosecution are the only answer to this menace.

Otherwise there will be more Mathura kaand across the country.

Tailpiece: Rumour

Ab  ye afbah koun faila raha hai ki jo ladkian brush nehi karti, who apna munh kapde se bandh karke ghumti hain.

(Now, who is spreading this rumour that girls who do not brush their teeth, move with the cloth tied across their faces)

(Courtesy: Social Media)

**

5. 6. 2016

The author, a journalist turned media academician lives and works at Dhenkanal, Odisha.  

Contact: mrinalchatterjee@ymail.com

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