In 1923, Shri Narain Dass Ji founded The English Book Depot. Established in
Dehradun, it is among the oldest bookstores, as well as a landmark in the city. The
longevity of the iconic bookstore is attributed to ‘staying relevant with the times.

Njattyela Sreedharan (Born in 1938 in Thalassery in Kerala), a fourth standard drop-
out, has compiled a dictionary connecting four major Dravidian languages. This
unique dictionary offers a comparative study of Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu.
The Chathur Dravida Bhasha Nighandu (Dictionary of Four Dravidian Languages) published
in 2020 contains 125000 words.

Ajay Kale teaches in the Dahiwadi Zilla Parishad school in Sanghli, uses QR codes
to teach his students. Effective Use of E- learning led to ‘Ajay Kale – Tech Guru ’ channel
on YouTube. On this channel there is more than 11K subscribers and more than 6,26,261
views overall.

Booknerds was established in 2016 and continues to function from Dehradun on
both online and offline platforms with 25000+ members. In the past seven years,
they have conducted over 150+ offline meetups.

At the age of 10 years, his book series ‘The World History in 3 Points’ and ‘More
World History in 3 Points’ were published by Hachette, the world’s second largest
publisher. •In his series of books he presents history topics in 3 crisp byte sized
capsules peppered with numerous illustrations so as to make history accessible and
interesting for everyone through different mediums like books, comics and stories.

Yellow Train is an International School offering IGCSE and A Levels located in
Coimbatore and operating 13 years onwards.Their innovative efforts to bring joy of
reading led them to buy a bogie of a train from the Indian Government and transform
it into a library for all children to enjoy.

Bibliophilia cafe was started in 2012 by Mr Imran Hussain as a lending library and reading room to encourage reading habits among the youth. With 12000 books of various genres, the Cafe made waves throughout the Northeast and rightfully earned its place in Times Of India as “7 must-visit Book Cafes outside Delhi”. Bibliophilia Café is the first of its kind place in North-Eastern India where people can read while enjoying food.

Ratan Nidhi Charitable Trust was established by Mr. Mahendra Mehta in 1967 to help poor children in Mumbai. They strive to empower underserved children, youth and the disabled community through relevant support services like education, clothes, books, food and technology. These days the trust is working tirelessly to promote reading habits among children through their project – “Mission Million Books”.

Realizing the trials and tribulations of the blind, Netraheen Vikas Sansthan was started with 2 children on 15th August 1977 in Jodhpur. One feature that sets them apart from similar institutions is their massive library containing more than 6500 Braille books including academic textbooks, competitive exams books, fiction, non-fiction, spiritual books and various reference books for classes 1st to 12th as well as higher education.

We all have grown up with stories; however, storytelling has primarily been a grown-up territory. But not for 7-year old Shanaya Singh holding multiple records for being the world’s youngest storyteller to have performed on national and international platforms, including Britain’s no. 1 Radio Show – Talking Stories by The East London Radio Show.

KP Radhamani is a 65-year-old ‘walking librarian’ from a village in Wayanad called Mothakkara. She has been distributing books to women and the elderly at their doorsteps since Braving the hilly terrain, she walks kilometres daily carrying a basket of books. She takes 20-50 Malayalam books covering various genres and subjects from the Pratibha Library and delivers them to around 110 members.

Pratikhya Patnaik is a Software Engineer by profession who has an undying love for books. She considers reading as an essential part of her life.

She also like photography so she never misses an opportunity to capture someone in their moment of reading as she believes it is one of the purest and happiest moments to share.

The Hole in Wall education project or Hole in wall learning station is a unique concept designed by Dr Sugata Mitra ,Chief scientist emeritus, NIIT. The Hole in Wall Learning Station has been created to promote minimal invasive education.

When we hear the word ‘Police Station’ – a disconcerting image comes to mind, after all, who has ever wanted to visit a police station. Delhi Police Public Library is a unique initiative by the South-East District Police started on 22nd February 2012 in association with Shikhar NGO to bridge the gap between the general public & police. It is the first of its kind Community Policing Initiative in India and has been running successfully for almost ten years now.

The Vidya Foundation is a team of volunteers from the slums of South Delhi who have stayed or are a resident of the slums. These volunteers are helping their fellow slum people / students with the intent to raise them up socially and economically via education has been transforming and impacting lives by their selfless and remarkable contribution.

GHPS Allapanahalli was established in 1961and it is managed by the Department of Education. It is located in rural area in Hoskote. This school has classes from 1 to 7. They have a library with 1350 books in the library. Joy of reading sessions are conducted to inculcate and improve the reading ability of the children.

Sri Sri Gnan Mandir Satkura , West Bengal was established in 2004. This school has classes from 1 to 4. They have a library with 200 books in the library. Joy of reading sessions are conducted to inculcate and improve the reading ability of the children.

Sri Sri Gnan Mandir, Chimbali, Pune school was established in 2010.The school has grades from 1 to 5. This school has a library with 200 books in it. Joy of reading sessions are conducted to inculcate and improve the reading ability of the children.

Six years ago, Ponmariappan started collecting books from stores and scrap dealers. Today, the salon has a collection of 900 books, and Ponmariappan has ensured a varied selection—from autobiographies to fiction, and even self-help books—in both Tamil and English. Normally for Hair Cutting Rs. 80/- if we read book the money reduces to Rs.50/- .Another reason behind keeping the book rack was to help people move away from their smartphones.

Kahaniwali Nani is on a mission to provide bedtime stories for every child. She wants to recreate the art of storytelling for children who, in today’s world, are addicted to their screens. She intends to the use the very technology to provide stories like the grandmothers use to tell their grandchildren in the olden days. Today she has 3000 subscribers on YouTube and 6000+ on Telegram .

Saivi Singh is a nine-year-old storyteller. She was featured in various National and International programs earning several acknowledgements and awards. Saivi recently has got appreciations from honourable lieutenant governor, Puducherry- Dr Kiran Bedi who is India’s First Women IPS and MEGASAYSAY Awardee for her Reading Interests.

Management Education and Research Institute (MERI) was established in 1995 by Triveni Educational and Social Welfare Society. MERI, understand THEIR commitment of empowering youth and nurturing the minds and strengthening the values of their students and therefore making them employable as per the industry standards. The activities are oriented towards updating the students with news related to different functional areas. This objective is achieved through organizing different types of reading contests that are followed by book reviews

Kendriya Vidyalaya Kanji Kode, Palakkad library was also among the eight libraries shortlisted at national level for LibTech 2019 for Best Integration of Technology. The Digital Library was launched to provide library services online during Covid-19 lock down. Library is fully automated with latest technologies like QR Code and barcode enabled self-circulation system, OPAC and online reservation facilities.

Esha started as an initiative to bring Braille books directly to the readers. In 2005, they pioneered braille visiting cards in India – this service is still going strong and is now managed entirely by the VI Professionals whom they mentored over years. Today, Esha focuses on the audio library and sensitization events for the sighted, to help create an inclusive mindset. There are 6908 audio files are now available for download in 22 languages created for the use of the visually challenged

Samuel Swaroop interests include photography and bike rides. He believes his biggest achievement in photography is winning a photography contest by SHOOTERS OF CANON India.

MPPS Shamshiguda School Library is Foundation Libraries and based on READER index parameters which include, how many books are being read, by how many children etc . were awarded Best Library South Zone.

Inculcating reading habits with innovation, in sustainable aluminium boxes and 20 books, is an initiative called Movable Library. This project was also awarded with the ‘Trend Setter’ award by Gujarat Innovation Society.

Mawdang L.P School was established in 1968 from class A (Nursery) to Class III with only one teacher. Only in 1987 the school got one more teacher. Then proceeded to class V in 2007 with 1 more teacher. With the support of the Mawdang village, there is a total of three teachers till date

Authored his first book “Honeycomb” for which the India book of records in May 2018, awarded him the title ‘The Youngest author in India’ for getting published at the age of 4. Initially, the book was a gift to family and friends but soon readers from different parts of the world started appreciating it. He has been felicitated at various events across India.

Book”O”holics was co-founded by Jigna and Neh Akansha in year 2016. Jigna, who was not much of a reader earlier, had initially started this club with 10 of her friends but today, it has grown into a group of 250

Lakshmi lived and worked with government primary schools for over a year. This inspired her to use art as a medium for education. Over the years, she has worked with children experiencing social exclusion in government schools, special needs schools, remedial schools, and in disadvantaged communities

The school has been established in the village of Palla, in Mewat region of Haryana, by SOS Children’s Villages Of India. This is an economically, socially and especially in education the most backward area of the state of Haryana. The motive to establish school here was to promote and prevail education for the community children residing in this region.

The Department of English, RBVRR Women’s College, Hyderabad has established the Quills Literary Club. The aim of the club is to provide a safe space for students to share their literary and creative ideas. The Club aims to fulfill the vision and mission of the College by enhancing the ability of students to communicate in the larger social and cultural context.

Started with the aim of bringing generations of children closer to stories from Indian mythologies, Amar Chitra Katha has been the late Anant Pai’s greatest creation. For his timeless contribution to Indian storytelling, Anant Pai (posthumously) was awarded with the ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ at India’s first comic convention in 2011.

Conceptualised by the Himachal Pradesh prison department,Book Café, Shimla is an enterprise for the reformation of prisoners. The library has over 457 books, most of them donated by authors, local residents and tourists from places as far as  Kerala. The place has free WiFi, a Kindle for e-book readers and hundreds of books and magazines for those who prefer the feel of paper.

Conceptualised by the Himachal Pradesh prison department, Book Cafe, Shimla is an enterprise for the reformation of prisoners. The library has over 457 books, most of them donated by authors, local residents and tourists from places as far as Kerala. The place has free WiFi, a Kindle for e-book readers and hundreds of books and magazines for those who prefer the feel of paper.

C. V. Raman College of Engineering, Bhubaneswar established in the year 1997, is one of the premier technical institutes in India. CVRCE, through its dept of HSS, which is run by well qualified and well-trained faculty members, has reached out to all the primary and secondary schools in the vicinity of their campus through mobile vans to spread the joy of reading.

Books n More an initiative by Varsha Ramesh, is a privately funded library and activity centre based in Hyderabad. Their aim is to make reading fun with various innovative activities and provision of support. Book Clubs, storytelling sessions, book-based camps, readathons, competitions, author interactions and many more are conducted.

Libraries@17000ft is part of 17000ft’s core initiatives towards improving education in each and every school in rural Ladakh, by building a reading culture and an environment of discovery and learning. The Library Program aims to make every child in every government school a member of any library and bring in methodologies to ensure that they have opportunities to read and gain exposure.

J M International School has always had a different approach towards learning. DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) daily reading ProgramThis is a daily time-slot in the time-table, when at the end of the day everyone winds up the almanac writing, pack the bags and then for sometime before calling it a day, everyone in each class reads a story-book or the newspaper.

On 26th January, 2016 Rajya Shiksha Kendra has taken an initiative to donate 121 books to a slum area. A girl named Muskan Ahirwar who turned out as an exceptionally enthusiastic natural leader came forward to start a library (Kitabi Masti) with those books. Nearly all children of the slum joined kitabi masti kendra. Now they all love to go to school

In an attempt to curate and revive original artistic creations, two young women are on a unique mission of collecting unknown stories, artworks, and ideas from people who have been instrumental in shaping the Indian subcontinent’s cultural heritage, and repackaging them in a manner that is bound to strike a chord with each one of us. DAAK project is a way of sending out letters to all the people who are looking for something interesting and meaningful to read.

Eshaan hails from a small town called Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh. A chance meeting with a ‘National Geographic Traveller Edition’ magazine made him intrigued with the world of photography and he started exploring the same. Now is on a journey to travel, explore and observe the nuances of life.

Reading Keeda is a step towards keeping the young ones around us bitten by the reading bug. It is a library for children between the age group
of 2 to 15 years and is also for parents. Currently, they have around 2500 books in English, Marathi and Hindi. In the summers, they offer young members the chance to become library co-ordinators thus helping them handle finances from a young age.

Recognizes Jail Inmates for their ability to read and assimilate the essence of books/authors ideas based on Reflection Journal.

SSGm Kerala, SSGM Odisha, SSGM Tiyushguda, SSGM Chimbali and SSGM Manipur Schools where the Foundation Libraries and based on READER index parameters which include, how many books are being read, by how many children etc . were awarded Best Library Zone Wise.

MPPS Matoor School Library is Foundation Libraries and based on READER index parameters which include, how many books are being read, by how many children etc . were awarded Best Library South Zone.

MPPS Shamshiguda School Library is Foundation Libraries and based on READER index parameters which include, how many books are being read, by how many children etc . were awarded Best Library South Zone.

Sophiya Public School Library is Foundation Libraries and based on READER index parameters which include, how many books are being read, by how many children etc . were awarded Best Library North Wise.

Recognizes children for their ability to read and assimilate the essence of books/authors ideas based on Reflection Journal

Recognizes children for their ability to read and assimilate the essence of books/authors ideas based on Reflection Journal