“Everybody should read at least 10 minutes a day to build power in their own personality,” said Vijay Phanshikar, Editor of ‘The Hitavada’ while speaking at the ‘Reading Skill Workshop’ organised by the Knowledge Resource Centre, Student Development Department, and National Service Scheme of Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University (RTMNU), at the auditorium in Jamnalal Bajaj Administrative Building on Wednesday. The workshop was organised as part of the State Government’s ‘Vachan Sankalp Maharashtracha’ initiative, which will run from January 1 to January 15 aimed at deepening students’ interest in reading books. Dr Rajendra Kakde, in charge Pro Vice-Chancellor, RTMNU, presided over the programme. Dr Raju Hiwase, Registrar, RTMNU, and Dr Vijay Khandal, Director, Knowledge Resource Centre, RTMNU, also shared the stage.

 

Phanshikar, in his keynote address, emphasized the importance of the habit of reading books regularly and the culture of writing and reading books in India through an example of a Chinese traveller who visited India long back. “Chinese travellers were impressed by India’s knowledge and collected lakhs of manuscripts to take the books to their homeland on multiple ships. The convoy of ships encountered a deadly storm on its way home threatening to drown all of them in sea. The Chinese traveller decided to throw books on ships in the sea to save ships and their sailors. The Indian scholars who were accompanying the traveller on ships opposed the traveller’s decision to throw books and instead, jumped into the sea to save the books. This reflects that India’s culture of books should survive, knowledge should survive even if human dies,” narrated Phanshikar. He also cited the burning of the library of Nalanda University by attackers as an example of enemies destroying India’s true centres of strength to conquer the country.

 

“The foreign attackers who consistently failed in conquering India understood that knowledge centres in India are their true strengths through spies. Next time, they attacked and destroyed the library in Nalanda, burnt the heap of books in its library that is said to have burned for six months,” informed Phanshikar. Phanshikar also gave examples of great leaders like Dr B R Ambedkar, Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj, and Dr APJ Abdul Kalam among others, and said that all the great leaders recognized the importance of reading in character building. Phanshikar gave the anecdotal example of meeting with Tukadoji Maharaj during his younger days and having to answer what book he was reading to them.

 

“They used to get sad if they came to know that a student is not reading a book,” recalled Phanshikar. Eventually, he requested all the teachers to read books as reading lends an edge to the words uttered by the teacher. He also advised students not to read destructive content like pornographic material but to indulge in good and constructive reading that will help them build the character. Dr Rajendra Kakde, in his presidential address, recognised the importance of reading and announced that the University will be encouraging reading activity not only for 15 days but for whole year through various activities. At the outset, Dr Vijay Khandal made the introductory comments. Dr Amruta Indurkar conducted the proceedings while Dr Raju Hiwase proposed a vote of thanks.