10 Lakh Students To Set World Record On Gandhi Jayanti

To set a new “world record”, more than 10 lakh students from schools and colleges will simultaneously read books in Lucknow for 45 minutes on Tuesday as part of ‘Padhe Lucknow, Badhe Lucknow’ campaign initiated by Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel.

Coordinated by Lucknow University (LU), the event will include students from Class 6 onwards. They will read books, preferably on Mahatma Gandhi or the freedom struggle in their classrooms from 11 am to 11.45 am on Tuesday.

More than 2,500 educational institutes in Lucknow — colleges affiliated to LU, AKTU, Dr Shakuntala Mishra University, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University and the KGMU, and all the schools under the Basic Education, Secondary Education, Madrasa and Ashram boards and Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan — are part of the campaign. Five teams of the “World Book of Records” have arrived in Lucknow and will monitor the event, officials said.

N K Pandey, Spokesperson, Lucknow University said, “We have counted all the students and the number reaches to around 10.34 lakh. All the students will read books in their respective classrooms and libraries of their schools and colleges from 11 am to 11.45 am."

“Teachers and school and college staff will also take part in the reading. For monitoring and counting, two photographs and a 30-second video from each classroom will be uploaded on the LU portal. Five teams of the World Book of Records can randomly inspect any of the school or college randomly. By around 2 pm, we are expecting all the photos and videos to be uploaded, and by evening all the data will be compiled and released,” he added.

An LU official informed that the students’ participation was not mandatory and that they had been asked to read books on Mahatma Gandhi or the freedom struggle to honour the 150th birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation next day.

“If not available, students can read any book, except their syllabus books. The books will either be provided by the institution or students can bring their own,” the LU official said.

(Source: IndianExpress Education)