An article in Business Standard (May 28, 2005) titled "Attack of the publishers" by Sangeeta Singh and an article in Asians in Media (June 02, 2005) titled "Attack of the Coffee Table books in India" by Vipin Agnihotri read the same word for word, except for some reordering of sentences.
So who actually wrote the article?
The mystery apart, here's a summary of what the articles actually say, on the export potential of the Indian publishing industry as well as the interest of foreign publishers in translating their books into Indian languages..
The Indian publishing industry today has grown to Rs 7,500 crore, of which exports comprise Rs 460 crore; in 1991, exports stood at a paltry Rs 33 crore. And that’s not all: leading global publishers like Pearson, Macmillan, Penguin, John Wiley, Aelsevier, Springer and Thomson are all contributing to this growing industry.
“It is not for back office work or affordable printing and typesetting rates that we are looking at India. Rather, it is for brain power that India has become a priority base for Macmillan worldwide,” says Richard Charkin, chief executive, Macmillan, and chairman, Macmillan India. Out of the total 7,000 employees that Macmillan has globally, 2,000 are in India. The company also considers India superior to its other hubs because of the back-end IT support that it gets for its printing activities. However, Macmillan plans to supply more science and educational books out of India because it thinks India has really improved in this area. “Good titles and educational books, especially IT-related, written by Indian authors are becoming popular in overseas markets,” says Ravi Beri, managing director, Macmillan India.
“Out of the Rs 460 crore worth of exports, 51 per cent goes to developed countries including the US, the UK and some European countries,” says Sukumar Das, former president, Federation of Publishers’ and Booksellers’ Association of India and chairman, UBS Publishers’ Distributors. And what are the kind of books that are going to these countries? Das says it is mostly new age, coffee table, religious, those related to ayurveda and naturopathy and so on, which are being lapped up in Western countries.
... out of the total titles produced in the country, 45 per cent are in English, which also makes it the third largest producer in English after the US and UK. But this trend may soon change, for foreign publishers are seeing potential in the Indian rural markets and because of this a lot of big titles and educational books are being translated into Hindi and leading regional languages like Marathi, Bengali, Telugu and Malayalam. “For us it is a part of the global policy of moving towards localisation. For instance, in South Africa, we have translated Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk To Freedom in 12 South African dialects and we want to do something similar in India,” says Charkin of Macmillan.
This article has been written by me. I am suprised that it has been copied word by word.
My aricle was for Business Standard Weekend pages.
Posted by: sangeeta Singh | September 30, 2005 at 04:54 PM
PURBACHAL ANANDA FOUNDATION
(Registered Under Societies Registration Act West Bengal XXVI of 1961 S/1L/32097)
(2/32,Purbachal,Durgapur-713201,Burdwan,West Bengal, India )
AN OASIS OF LOVE FOR CHILDREN & AGED PERSONS
An Appeal
Purbachal Ananda Foundation ( PAF) has come into being out of an earnest commitment and desire of a group of young social workers to accomplish a mission of their own, for the cause of those children and aged persons who are not loved and cared for by the society at large. These young persons who had some experiences in working for such people either in their own individual capacities or as volunteers in some NGOs involved in similar activities. But, through such exposures and experiences came a realization that one’s own mission as also vision can be accomplished if only such activities could be undertaken independently. Thus was ‘born’ PAF.
We, in PAF, believe in the saying that ‘work is our sole identity’. In all our activities, honesty and transparency are our commitments. It is our vow to create a ‘PAF Family’ where true love would be the common bond for each and everyone of your children and elderly persons who have been marginalized in the society because of their destitution and abject poverty.
PAF is in its infancy now. It has started its activities with 10 children in the age- group 3-8 years (6 are children of sex-workers and 4 are street children) and 2 aged persons at a remote village called Purokonda in Bankura district of West Bengal. A dwelling unit has been constructed on the land donated by the local Gouria Math and a tube-well has been sunk along with arrangements for minimum toilet/sanitary facilities. Plans are afoot to construct another dwelling unit so that more inmates can be accommodated. PAF has also decided to undertake a program to provide formal education to children of nearby ‘dom’ community( who were hitherto untouchables) by making them admitted to local school and bearing the expenses for their education. Other plans under active consideration include ‘ After-school assistance program for poor and less meritorious students of the near-by villages’ and ‘Running abridged course for drop-out children of the locality’.
Till now, PAF is carrying on its activities entirely with donations from well-wishing individuals, and, as expectedly, this would have to continue for the near future as well. While we are making sincere efforts towards receiving some kind of institutional funding, we also appeal to all sympathetic individuals and/or organizations for financial help. We sincerely hope that you will be kind enough to extend a helping hand to our activities by sponsoring one or more of the following activities of PAF.
(i) Educational sponsorship for one school-going child for one year Rs. 2000 or US $ 50
(ii) Sponsoring one child for one year Rs. 12,000 or US $ 300
(iii) Sponsoring an aged person for one year Rs. 12,000 or US $ 300
(iv) Sponsoring a pre-primary educational centre Rs. 6,000 or US $ 150
(v) Sponsoring book –bank for school books Rs. 3,000 or US $ 75
(vi) Sponsoring an after-school assistance program /abridged course for drop-outs Rs. 2,000 or US $ 50
(vii) Sponsoring a vocational training program for a group of 20 women Rs. 2,000 or US $ 50
CONTRACT FORM FOR SPONSORSHIP
I would like to sponsor one or more of the PAF activities (please tick the appropriate one(s) above) viz., item no(s). (state whether full or part payment) ,and the amount thereof (Rs. and Rupees (in words) ) is being paid in cash by a/c cheque ( in favour of Purbachal Ananda Foundation) by dd by wired transfer(Bank A/C No-213010100081290, U T I bank LTD, Durgapur ( West Bengal ) ).
Name (Mr./Ms./ Dr.)
Address
Phone no.
E-mail address
Date Signature
With regards,
Yours truly,
Arindam Banerjee
Founder-Secretary
Purbachal Ananda Foundation
Tel-91 343 2552230, 91 9832239871
anandafoundation@yahoo.co.in, anandafoundation@hotmail.com, http://www.karmayog.org/paf
Posted by: Purbachal Ananda Foundation | March 01, 2006 at 07:46 PM
PURBACHAL ANANDA FOUNDATION
(Registered Under Societies Registration Act West Bengal XXVI of 1961 S/1L/32097)
(2/32,Purbachal,Durgapur-713201,Burdwan,West Bengal, India )
AN OASIS OF LOVE FOR CHILDREN & AGED PERSONS
An Appeal
Purbachal Ananda Foundation ( PAF) has come into being out of an earnest commitment and desire of a group of young social workers to accomplish a mission of their own, for the cause of those children and aged persons who are not loved and cared for by the society at large. These young persons who had some experiences in working for such people either in their own individual capacities or as volunteers in some NGOs involved in similar activities. But, through such exposures and experiences came a realization that one’s own mission as also vision can be accomplished if only such activities could be undertaken independently. Thus was ‘born’ PAF.
We, in PAF, believe in the saying that ‘work is our sole identity’. In all our activities, honesty and transparency are our commitments. It is our vow to create a ‘PAF Family’ where true love would be the common bond for each and everyone of your children and elderly persons who have been marginalized in the society because of their destitution and abject poverty.
PAF is in its infancy now. It has started its activities with 10 children in the age- group 3-8 years (6 are children of sex-workers and 4 are street children) and 2 aged persons at a remote village called Purokonda in Bankura district of West Bengal. A dwelling unit has been constructed on the land donated by the local Gouria Math and a tube-well has been sunk along with arrangements for minimum toilet/sanitary facilities. Plans are afoot to construct another dwelling unit so that more inmates can be accommodated. PAF has also decided to undertake a program to provide formal education to children of nearby ‘dom’ community( who were hitherto untouchables) by making them admitted to local school and bearing the expenses for their education. Other plans under active consideration include ‘ After-school assistance program for poor and less meritorious students of the near-by villages’ and ‘Running abridged course for drop-out children of the locality’.
Till now, PAF is carrying on its activities entirely with donations from well-wishing individuals, and, as expectedly, this would have to continue for the near future as well. While we are making sincere efforts towards receiving some kind of institutional funding, we also appeal to all sympathetic individuals and/or organizations for financial help. We sincerely hope that you will be kind enough to extend a helping hand to our activities by sponsoring one or more of the following activities of PAF.
(i) Educational sponsorship for one school-going child for one year Rs. 2000 or US $ 50
(ii) Sponsoring one child for one year Rs. 12,000 or US $ 300
(iii) Sponsoring an aged person for one year Rs. 12,000 or US $ 300
(iv) Sponsoring a pre-primary educational centre Rs. 6,000 or US $ 150
(v) Sponsoring book –bank for school books Rs. 3,000 or US $ 75
(vi) Sponsoring an after-school assistance program /abridged course for drop-outs Rs. 2,000 or US $ 50
(vii) Sponsoring a vocational training program for a group of 20 women Rs. 2,000 or US $ 50
CONTRACT FORM FOR SPONSORSHIP
I would like to sponsor one or more of the PAF activities (please tick the appropriate one(s) above) viz., item no(s). (state whether full or part payment) ,and the amount thereof (Rs. and Rupees (in words) ) is being paid in cash by a/c cheque ( in favour of Purbachal Ananda Foundation) by dd by wired transfer(Bank A/C No-213010100081290, U T I bank LTD, Durgapur ( West Bengal ) ).
Name (Mr./Ms./ Dr.)
Address
Phone no.
E-mail address
Date Signature
With regards,
Yours truly,
Arindam Banerjee
Founder-Secretary
Purbachal Ananda Foundation
Tel-91 343 2552230, 91 9832239871
anandafoundation@yahoo.co.in, anandafoundation@hotmail.com, http://www.karmayog.org/paf
Posted by: Purbachal Ananda Foundation | March 01, 2006 at 07:47 PM