RAJESH WARRIER

The philanthropic arm of Google
Monday, February 27, 2006

Heard of Google.org ? Not yet ? Well, Its the so called "philanthropic arm" of google, and includes work of the Google foundation and uses some of Google's own projects using Google talent, technology and other resources. The Google foundation has made some initial commitments, one of them which I found interesting is -

Planet Read - Its an organization seeking to improve literacy in India using same-language subtitling. By adding subtitles to Bollywood films and videos of popular folk songs, PlanetRead gives people who have low literacy skills regular reading practice. As it expands, this approach has the potential to reach hundreds of millions of people.

Now a days more than 200 million people in India are getting weekly-reading practise from Same Language Subtitling (SLS) using TV !! The cost involved ?? Every U.S. dollar covers regular reading for 10,000 people – for a year. The founder of PlanetRead is Dr. Brij Kothari and his views could be read here in detail.

Its a superb idea and is bound to succeed hands down. The song from 'Chalte Chalte' has been depicted on superb karaoke here (under Film Songs). Programs in Hindi, Tamizh, Bengali, Kannada and Telugu have started showing programs with SLS, mostly DD (Doordarshan) channels.

Photo courtsey - PlanetRead

Archived in: Google Bollywood Hindi Films Literacy Doordarshan Lagaan Chalte Chalte Amir Khan Gracy Singh