Realising the extraordinary psychological, social, economic and cultural significance of corona pandemic for the human society in times to come, the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry will launch a publishing series titled ‘Corona Studies Series’ to document and provide relevant reading materials for all age-groups for the post-Corona readership needs.
HRD Ministry's publishing arm, National Book Trust, has been entrusted to prepare books on various segments like coronavirus (Covid-19) affected families, elderly people, parents with special focus on mothers/women, children and adolescents, professionals and workers, corona warriors like medical and essential services and the differently-abled, special needs and mentally challenged population.
NBT has identified various areas for preparing suitable reading materials under the ‘Corona Studies Series’. Besides, the sub-series on the Psycho-Social Impact on various segment of population due to Corona crisis.
"We have been closely following the Corona-related developments and taking cues from the multi-dimensional initiatives of HRD Ministry's initiatives to meet the challenges of the Corona Pandemic. As a body for reading promotion, we find that we have a significant role to play. Accordingly, we started #StayHomeIndiaWithBooks initiatives by uploading pdfs of some of our select and bestselling titles for free downloads, and we have been receiving tremendous response. Taking a comprehensive view, we are launching this publishing series," said NBT Director Yuvraj Malik.
As the first step, NBT has set-up a Study Group comprising of experienced and young psychologists/counsellors to prepare books on the sub-series on ‘Psycho-Social Impact of Corona Pandemic and the Ways to Cope’.
"We are preparing children’s books to let them know about Our Corona Warriors, and other story and picture books related to various aspects of Corona to create awareness. Also, books focused on art, literature, folklore, economic and sociological aspects, science/health awareness emerging out of the Corona pandemic, and the lockdown, are also in the pipeline”, said Kumar Vikram, Senior Editor of NBT who is leading the Project.
"In response to the national crisis of this proportion, we believe that as a national institution it is our duty to take initiatives within our domain area to provide support in the form of new reading materials. The ‘Corona Studies Series’ seeks to be our long-term contribution to prepare and engage readers with the various aspects of the Corona times by bringing out affordable books in various Indian languages in the identified subject areas,” said NBT Chairman Prof.Govind Prasad Sharma.
The NBT Study Group comprises Dr.JitenderNagpal, Dr.Harsheeta, Sq. Ldr (Rtd.) Meena Arora, Lt. Col. TarunUppal, Mrs. Rekha Chauhan, Mrs. Sonie Sidhu and Ms. Aparajita Dixit.
