The travelling children’s literature festival- Ghummakkad Narain, will be held in Dehradun during September apart from which it will also travel to Shillong in the north-east for the first time.
The festival is inspired by the life of Thakur Vishva Narain Singh, a noted journalist and writer of Dehradun who was also the first Braille Editor of India at the National Institute for the Visually Handicapped (NIVH). He served the visually impaired by bringing out literature for the 10 million blind in the country in 10 regional languages in the Braille script. Taking from his idea ‘possess your own library’ and his interest in spreading the joy of reading, the travelling children’s literature festival was held for the first time in 2010 at Dehradun. Ghummakkad Narain is an initiative of NGOs Nivesh and Himalayan Hub for Art, Culture and Heritage (HHACH) organised in collaboration with the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
The festival organiser and president of Nivesh, Rachna Bisht stated, "Ghummakkad Narain was started with UNESCO to promote reading among children and support their continued interest as young adults. Reading makes one a thinker and today more than ever we need a society that can think for itself especially the youth."