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\nNew Delhi, Nov 20 : Union Human Resource Development Minister Dr M M Pallam Raju says reading habits face a real challenge in the
\nworld of TV and internet. The Minister said this while releasing a report Youth of North-East India: Demographics and Readership in New Delhi today, in the presence of Minister of State for HRD, Jitin Prasada. Driving home the point of the need for people, especially the young, to read more Dr Pallam Raju said reading as a habit grows in a conducive ecosystem, where libraries, book shops and teacher encouragement play an important role.
\nThe Report attempts to give an analytical and detailed account of the reading habits of the literate youth in the north-eastern states and their exposure to different forms of media, and how diverse socio-economic and motivational factors impact their reading habit. The reading of \u2018leisure or non-text books\u2019 among the literate youth is the special focus of the study.
\nSome of the salient features of the report are
\nAs compared to all India, the performance of the north-eastern states is much superior. In fact, the north-eastern region has performed much better than Maharashtra, which is the topmost state of the country in terms of economic well-being. The results reveal that the NAGMAMI ( Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram) region is at the top slot with 67 percent (85% urban, 59% rural) readers followed by Assam with 41 percent (55% urban, 38% rural), showing that these NE states are far ahead of Maharashtra with 34 percent (39% urban, 28% rural) readers. The \u2018rest of the NE states\u2019 and the \u2018rest of the states\u2019 are at the bottom of the table with only 24 percent and 23 percent readers respectively in these regions
\nThe north-eastern states of India, despite their economic backwardness, have a greater proportion of readers among its youth population. The survey results reveal that in the north-eastern states, 43 percent of the youth are readers. While the central states have the largest block (85%) of non-readers, the north-east has the smallest (57%).It is noticed that the north-eastern region has the highest proportion of literate youth hailing from rural areas, while in the remaining parts of India, the concentration of literate youth is more towards urban.
\nIn Assam, the highest percentage of rural youth (41%) considers the subject of the book as the most important deciding factor. The other important considerations are \u2018author profile\u2019 and \u2018price\u2019 as viewed by 26 percent and 17 percent youth respectively (Table 4.27). However, in other NE states, price of the book is the most important factor (52%) while purchasing leisure books, followed by subject (16%) and author profile (13%). For rural Maharashtra, subject is the most important weighing factor as viewed by 38 percent youth, the next important factor being price which has only a marginal amount of higher support over the author profile (22% vs 19%). The youth from the \u2018rest of the states\u2019 has expressed a more convincing opinion \u2013 that subject (30%) and author profile (27%) are the two most important weighing factors, price can only be the third factor (25%)
\nThe Report is a follow-up study of the National Youth Readership Survey (2009-10) assigned to National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) by the NBT under the National Action Plan for the Readership Development among the Youth (NAPRDY) mooted by NBT. In order to have a better understanding of the status of the North-Eastern (NE) states as compared to the rest of country in this sector, the findings are compared with the similar result for one developed state (Maharashtra) and one economically backward state (Bihar), chosen on the basis of their per capita gross domestic product. This is over and above the comparison of the findings in respect of the NE states with the overall Indian situation.<\/p>\n\n