際際滷

際際滷Share a Scribd company logo

Financial express indianyouth-demographicsandreadership

Muddassir Karnolwal
Muddassir Karnolwal

This document summarizes the key findings of the National Youth Readership Survey 2009 conducted in India. Some of the main findings include: - There are approximately 333 million literate youth aged 13-35 in India, with 72.8% of all youth being literate. - Television is the most popular media for youth at 78%, followed by newspapers at 53%. Internet access is only 3.7% overall. - There are 83 million leisure book readers among youth, with 47% in urban and 53% in rural areas. Hindi is the most preferred language for books. - Factors contributing to declining reading habits include the rise of television, internet and lack of reading culture according to both readers and non-

1 of 1
Download to read offline
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 New Delhi Special 10 NATIONAL BOOK TRUST-NATIONAL COUNCIL OF APPLIED ECONOMIC RESEARCH NATIONAL YOUTH READERSHIP SURVEY 2009 Indian Youth: Demographics & Readership Population (Million) Census 2001 NYRS 2009 2009 Growth (%) Total (All India) 1,029 1,213 2.08 Youth (13-35 years) 390 459 2.05 Literate youth (13-35 years) 273 333 2.49 Share of youth Youth to total population 37.8% Literate youth to total population 26.6% 37.9% 27.4% Literate youth to total youth 70.0% 72.8% Three out of every four youth in the country is literate. Rural India accounts for around two-third of all 333-million literate youth. One in three literate youth in India is a student, around a fifth are doing unpaid housework, and just over one in ten have a regular salaried job or are wage earners. Television reaches 259-million and newspapers 177-million. FE presents s peek into the first-ever readership survey of literate Indian youth commissioned by National Book Trust and conducted by National Council of Applied Economic Research team led by Senior Fellow Rajesh Shukla. The survey, conducted in November-December 2009, covered a sample of 659,569 individuals, including 311,431 literate youth (13-35 year olds), across 207 districts for rural and 199 towns for urban India.. Youth Media Consumption Distribution of literate youth by location Rural 174.8 206.6 64.0 62.1 2.11 Urban 98.4 126.1 36.0 37.9 3.15 273.2 332.7 100.0 100.0 2.49 By Location By Education Muslim 13.4 13.2 NSS, 2004-05 based on total population 13 6 Matric HS Cookery Graduate SC 19.7 8.5 OBC 41.1 30.8 27.3 Distribution of literate youth by age group Population million % distribution Census NYRS Census NYRS Annual 2001 2009 2001 2009 growth (%) 13-19 yrs 112.7 122.0 41.3 36.7 0.99 20-24 yrs 63.4 73.4 23.2 22.1 1.84 97.1 137.3 35.5 41.3 4.43 273.2 332.7 100.0 100.0 2.49 20.6 12.0 1.3 Environmental pollution 90.8 65.3 22.5 21.5 7.7 77.8 53.2 21.3 15.6 3.7 Politics Fashion Newspaper Magazine Television Surfing the net Population million % distribution Census NYRS Census NYRS Annual 2001 2009 2001 2009 growth (%) Male 159.8 186.5 58.5 56.1 1.95 Female 113.4 146.2 41.5 43.9 3.23 Total 273.2 332.7 100.0 100.0 2.49 14.5 63.4 16.9 22.2 22.8 5.6 1.1 10.6 1.5 2.3 0.3 8.3 8.1 5.8 1.6 9.9 4.1 7.2 4.4 2.5 0.6 6.5 1.1 1.3 2.5 Politics 4.9 6.0 3.0 2.0 1.1 11.3 5.9 6.7 11.2 12.7 14.0 27.9 4.0 Television remains as the most popular source of information with 78% (91% urban, 70% rural) youth viewer-ship. Newspaper comes second with 53% (65.3% urban, 45.9% rural) readership, though it scores over television when it comes to being the primary source for news & current affairs Rural Preferred Language 1 Urban % Share Hindi 39.5 Preferred Language % Share Preferred Language % Share Hindi 37.2 Hindi 38.5 10.5 2 Marathi 9.4 Marathi 11.8 Marathi 30.1 -0.31 3 Malayalam 9.0 Tamil 10.9 Tamil 8.9 Secondary 149.6 200.5 54.8 60.3 3.73 Graduate+ 20.8 31.9 7.6 9.6 5.49 4 Tamil 7.2 Gujarati 7.0 Telugu 6.6 273.2 332.7 100.0 100.0 2.49 5 Telugu 7.0 Kannada 6.6 Malayalam 6.6 6 Kannada 6.3 Telugu 6.2 Kannada Place of exposure (% of reported youth) Newspaper Magazine Television Radio Internet At home 50.6 70.0 74.8 74.8 23.4 At work 5.9 3.9 6.0 6.0 12.7 School/Collages 4.7 4.1 0.7 0.7 6.2 1.3 3.8 0.4 0.4 14.5 8.1 9.2 9.2 Rural Urban All India Regular salary & wages 8.7 18.2 12.3 Self-employed in non-agriculture 7.3 8.3 7.7 Library/ Reading club Agriculture labour 8.0 1.6 5.6 Neighbourhood Other (casual) labour 9.8 8.5 9.3 Friends Self-employed in agri & allied activity 8.0 1.1 5.4 Shop/cafe/ restaurants 4.9 4.7 32.6 32.1 Unpaid housework 19.8 20.4 20.1 Survey Sample Size and its Distribution Rural Urban All India I. Districts/Towns 207 199 406 II. Villages/Urban wards 432 753 1,185 2,39,436 4,20,133 6,59,569 17,006 26,998 44,004 III. Individuals (Frame) a. 10-12 years b. 13-35 years (Illiterate) c 13-35 years (Literate) d Over 35 years (13-35 years, literate) 12% 43% 7% 1.3 0.3 25% 0.4% 332.7 83.4 25% 100% Share of readers (% of literate) Distribution of readers % Youth readers million 186.5 44.3 24 53 146.2 39.1 27 47 332.7 83.4 25 100 There are 83-million leisure book (non-syllabus) readers, of which 39-million (47%) are urban and 44-millon (53%) are rural. Hindi emerges as the most preferred language for leisure reading (33%) and English as the second preferred language (43%) Perception and motivation How did you start reading leisure books? (% of youth readers) % of youth readers Learned reading at school 59.0 Parents encouraged to read 18.8 Much later and it has nothing to do with school or family 12.5 While travelling 5.8 9.5 Reading period was interesting and useful 83.3 64.7 74.9 Reasons for decline in reading (% of youth in agreement) Readers Non-readers Total Advent of TV, Internet,e-books etc 53.1 45.2 Poor reading culture 18.5 19.5 47.7 19.2 6.4 Lack of time 10.9 12.9 12.3 5.8 Bengali 6.0 Bengali 5.9 Cost factor 7.9 8.4 8.3 4.5 English 4.1 Gujarati 5.6 Lack of motivation 4.4 4.7 4.6 1.8 9 Oriya 3.6 Malayalam 3.8 Oriya 2.9 Lack of access to books 4.2 8.1 6.9 10 Assamese 3.0 Oriya 2.0 English 2.5 Other 0.9 1.2 1.1 4.4 11 Punjabi 1.3 Assamese 1.3 Assamese 2.2 12 English 1.2 Urdu 1.2 Punjabi 1.1 13 Others 2.2 Others 1.9 Others 2.2 4.9 3.2 3.2 5.2 3.4 3.2 3.2 46.1 0.5 1.9 2.4 2.4 0.2 Subscription of newspapers & magazines by source of income % of literate youth households Radio Internet <15 27.4 14.1 2.3 11.3 7.0 15-30 49.1 44.3 14.4 37.3 24.5 30-60 19.7 31.9 32.6 29.2 43.0 32,622 26,503 59,125 60-120 3.0 7.9 30.9 15.0 18.7 2,09,410 3,11,431 >120 0.9 1.8 19.9 7.2 6.8 87,787 1,57,222 2,45,009 Average time spent (Minutes/day) 32.4 43.9 97.6 60.9 69.9 13,994 24,453 38,447 52 259 71 12 177 20.7 Bengali Average time spent on different media (% distribution of youth by sources of information) Esti youth (in mn) 26.9 Had specific period in school timetable for leisure reading Gujarati 5.7 Magazine Television Total 19.4 7 16.8 (minutes) Newspaper Non-readers 49.5 8 1,02,021 IV. Sample Youth 14% 5.6 Readers 37.6 4.5 10.1 Teacher encouraged to read in the school All India 100.3 31.8 69.8 13.2 Motivation of reading (% of youth in agreement) 102.8 Unemployed 22% 22% Total 12.2 Primary Student 30% 32% Preferred language to read print media (% of reported youth) Population million % distribution Census NYRS Census NYRS Annual 2001 2009 2001 2009 growth (%) Distribution of literate youth by activity status (in %) 18.5 18.3 Male 1.1 Fashion/ Personal care 62.7 57.9 Female 10.7 Others Religion 13% 24% Total estimated literate youth million Watching television 8.1 21% 26% 7.5 Reading newspaper / magazines Sports 10.5 20.1 Total Outing with family/friends 56.6 50.0 77.8 Others Listening to music Distribution of literate youth by level of education Total Distribution of readers % Central Hobbies/Sports 53.8 Three fourths are religious, with highest proportion amongst Sikhs (93%), followed by Muslims (78%), Christians (77%) and Hindus (75%). One in three literate youth believes in astrology, and half of these say that it is based on scientific principles Share of readers (% of literate) Youth readers million Youth readers and their distribution by gender Sleeping 33.2 Others (Nature, 8.4 market, matrimonial, etc) 100 North-East 1.0 Reading leisure books 9.4 News & current events 25 East Preferred leisure activities - All India Radio Internet 83.4 West Literate youth % Health Distribution of literate youth by Gender Entertainment 332.7 North 28.9 Preference of information (% of reported youth) 53 47 South 30.1 Total 40.3 General Radio 45.9 Nearly 24% households have newspaper subscription (15% rural, 39% urban) and 8% (5% rural, 12% urban) magazines. Four out of every 7 households of graduate plus and, three out of every 8 urban households with literate youth get a newspaper 21 31 Total estimated literate youth million 34.4 Newspaper 69.9 Urban 9.8 44.1 39.4 Youth readers and their distribution by region 35.3 Television 22.7 ST 206.6 126.1 38.7 Science and technology Magazine Internet Distribution of readers % Urban 54.7 Sports 9 2 Primary 58.9 Rural NYRS, 2009 Literate youth population Total Rural Total Share of readers (% of literate) All India 71.8 Religious & spiritual Major source of information (% of youth) Per cent distribution of literate youth (population) by social group 25-35 yrs 12 Urban 81.5 8 80.5 5 Hindu 15 Census 2001 NTYRS, 2009 based on total Literate youth population population Youth readers million Rural 77.5 Current Affairs 23 24 Per cent distribution of literate youth by religion Total estimated literate youth million Music /Films 23 39 All India Youth readers and their distribution by location Literate youth % Magazines Newspaper % of literate youth households Youth Book Reading Youth interest in selected issues/topics - All India Subscription of newspapers & magazines 38 Population million % distribution Census NYRS Census NYRS Annual 2001 2009 2001 2009 growth (%) 57 Youth Demographics Agriculture labour 2.9 Self employed in non-agriculture 4.3 Casual labour 4.0 Self employed in non-agriculture Regular salary & wages Others (pension etc) 10.1 11.8 Newspaper Magazines are a useful source to 15.6% (21.5% urban, 12.0% rural) of the youth. And nearly 21% (22.5% urban, 20.6% rural) of youth listen to radio. Internet is accessed by 3.7% youth (7.7% urban, 1.3% rural) Magazines 15.8 10.9 10.6 15.5 29.0 35.6 39.6 * Youth = 13-35 years, Youth implies literate youth unless specified VitalToUnderstandYouthReadingCulture LetsMakeEvery15-25Year-OldAReader ProfBipanChandra Chairman,NationalBookTrust,India Nuzhat Hassan Director, National Book Trust, India NATIONAL BOOK TRUST, India was established in 1957 by our first Prime Minister Shri Jawaharlal Nehru as part of the mammoth nationbuildingexercisethatwastakenupimmediately after the independence in the social, political, economic and cultural fields. The idea was to create a public funded institution that could create good books, make them available to the general readers at the affordable prices and which would keep finding ways to understand andmeetthereadingneedsof the massesatlarge. Ithinkthatof alltheinstitutionsthatwerefoundedtoworkin theculturalfields,thefoundingof aninstitutionlikeNBTfor creating a learning and book reading society was the most visionaryone.Itissobecause,whilemostof theinstitutionshad aclear-cuttargetarealikeworkingforthetheatres,arts,literature etc, NBT was asked to work for the reading needs of the masses. With hardly one third of the population literateatthetimeof Indiasindependence,tobe able to visualize a society that needed to be nourishedonprogressiveandsecularbookstounderstand and sustain the basic foundations of the independent India was masterstroke. The Trust hasplayedavitalroleinprovidingqualitybooks toalltargetaudienceincludingchildren. In the light of the growing importance of the youthintheaffairsof thecountry ,theTrusttook an initiative to frame a National Action Plan for the Readership Development among the youth and entrusted the job of undertaking the first everNationalYouthReadershipSurveyfromthe perspective of book reading habit to the NCAER, probably oneof thebestintheworldtoconductsuchsurveysandanalyses. I believe that the findings of the survey will open up new windows to the understanding of the way the most energetic component of our population thinks and behaves when it comestobooksandreadingculture. WHEN THE NATIONAL BOOK TRUST, India was set up, its founding father Shri Jawaharlal Nehru talked about NBT serving as a kind of book hospital for finding out what generally stood in the way of books being purchased and read. National Book Trust, India had got a survey of Indian publishing done by NCAER on the occasion of its silver jubilee celebrations in 1982. Since that time many momentous changes have takenplace,andtheNBTfoundittherighttimeto takestockof thereadinghabits,patterns,trends, attitudes, etc. among the youth of the country Our golden ju. bileecelebrationsintheyear2007enabledustotakeuptheinitiative. It is needless to say that for any large scale book promotionandpublishingventuretosucceed,itisimperative tofindwaystoconnectandinteractwiththeyouthof thecountry which not only forms the largest chunk of our population , but demands a serious response from the intellectualsandpublishersintermsof theirreading needs in the fast changing socio-political and cultural landscape of our nation. With NCAER, theTrustformedanAdvisoryCommitteeof eminent personalities from different walks of life, who not only interacted with the NBT-NCAER teamcontinuouslybutalsoguidedandmoulded the contours of the study The target group for . the study taken is 13-35 years and NBT, India hopes to take its findings right into the realm of public debate so that a feasible National Action Plan for the Readership Development Among the Youth could be devised. Our ambitious plan is to make all youth in the age group of 15-25 years an ctive A Reader by the year 2025. Naturally the target is ambitious, , and to achieve it we wish to enlist the help, guidance and support of the policy makers, intellectuals, book lovers, publishingfraternity ,youthleaders,socialactivistsandthepeopleof thecountry .

More Related Content

Financial express indianyouth-demographicsandreadership

  • 1. Tuesday, February 9, 2010 New Delhi Special 10 NATIONAL BOOK TRUST-NATIONAL COUNCIL OF APPLIED ECONOMIC RESEARCH NATIONAL YOUTH READERSHIP SURVEY 2009 Indian Youth: Demographics & Readership Population (Million) Census 2001 NYRS 2009 2009 Growth (%) Total (All India) 1,029 1,213 2.08 Youth (13-35 years) 390 459 2.05 Literate youth (13-35 years) 273 333 2.49 Share of youth Youth to total population 37.8% Literate youth to total population 26.6% 37.9% 27.4% Literate youth to total youth 70.0% 72.8% Three out of every four youth in the country is literate. Rural India accounts for around two-third of all 333-million literate youth. One in three literate youth in India is a student, around a fifth are doing unpaid housework, and just over one in ten have a regular salaried job or are wage earners. Television reaches 259-million and newspapers 177-million. FE presents s peek into the first-ever readership survey of literate Indian youth commissioned by National Book Trust and conducted by National Council of Applied Economic Research team led by Senior Fellow Rajesh Shukla. The survey, conducted in November-December 2009, covered a sample of 659,569 individuals, including 311,431 literate youth (13-35 year olds), across 207 districts for rural and 199 towns for urban India.. Youth Media Consumption Distribution of literate youth by location Rural 174.8 206.6 64.0 62.1 2.11 Urban 98.4 126.1 36.0 37.9 3.15 273.2 332.7 100.0 100.0 2.49 By Location By Education Muslim 13.4 13.2 NSS, 2004-05 based on total population 13 6 Matric HS Cookery Graduate SC 19.7 8.5 OBC 41.1 30.8 27.3 Distribution of literate youth by age group Population million % distribution Census NYRS Census NYRS Annual 2001 2009 2001 2009 growth (%) 13-19 yrs 112.7 122.0 41.3 36.7 0.99 20-24 yrs 63.4 73.4 23.2 22.1 1.84 97.1 137.3 35.5 41.3 4.43 273.2 332.7 100.0 100.0 2.49 20.6 12.0 1.3 Environmental pollution 90.8 65.3 22.5 21.5 7.7 77.8 53.2 21.3 15.6 3.7 Politics Fashion Newspaper Magazine Television Surfing the net Population million % distribution Census NYRS Census NYRS Annual 2001 2009 2001 2009 growth (%) Male 159.8 186.5 58.5 56.1 1.95 Female 113.4 146.2 41.5 43.9 3.23 Total 273.2 332.7 100.0 100.0 2.49 14.5 63.4 16.9 22.2 22.8 5.6 1.1 10.6 1.5 2.3 0.3 8.3 8.1 5.8 1.6 9.9 4.1 7.2 4.4 2.5 0.6 6.5 1.1 1.3 2.5 Politics 4.9 6.0 3.0 2.0 1.1 11.3 5.9 6.7 11.2 12.7 14.0 27.9 4.0 Television remains as the most popular source of information with 78% (91% urban, 70% rural) youth viewer-ship. Newspaper comes second with 53% (65.3% urban, 45.9% rural) readership, though it scores over television when it comes to being the primary source for news & current affairs Rural Preferred Language 1 Urban % Share Hindi 39.5 Preferred Language % Share Preferred Language % Share Hindi 37.2 Hindi 38.5 10.5 2 Marathi 9.4 Marathi 11.8 Marathi 30.1 -0.31 3 Malayalam 9.0 Tamil 10.9 Tamil 8.9 Secondary 149.6 200.5 54.8 60.3 3.73 Graduate+ 20.8 31.9 7.6 9.6 5.49 4 Tamil 7.2 Gujarati 7.0 Telugu 6.6 273.2 332.7 100.0 100.0 2.49 5 Telugu 7.0 Kannada 6.6 Malayalam 6.6 6 Kannada 6.3 Telugu 6.2 Kannada Place of exposure (% of reported youth) Newspaper Magazine Television Radio Internet At home 50.6 70.0 74.8 74.8 23.4 At work 5.9 3.9 6.0 6.0 12.7 School/Collages 4.7 4.1 0.7 0.7 6.2 1.3 3.8 0.4 0.4 14.5 8.1 9.2 9.2 Rural Urban All India Regular salary & wages 8.7 18.2 12.3 Self-employed in non-agriculture 7.3 8.3 7.7 Library/ Reading club Agriculture labour 8.0 1.6 5.6 Neighbourhood Other (casual) labour 9.8 8.5 9.3 Friends Self-employed in agri & allied activity 8.0 1.1 5.4 Shop/cafe/ restaurants 4.9 4.7 32.6 32.1 Unpaid housework 19.8 20.4 20.1 Survey Sample Size and its Distribution Rural Urban All India I. Districts/Towns 207 199 406 II. Villages/Urban wards 432 753 1,185 2,39,436 4,20,133 6,59,569 17,006 26,998 44,004 III. Individuals (Frame) a. 10-12 years b. 13-35 years (Illiterate) c 13-35 years (Literate) d Over 35 years (13-35 years, literate) 12% 43% 7% 1.3 0.3 25% 0.4% 332.7 83.4 25% 100% Share of readers (% of literate) Distribution of readers % Youth readers million 186.5 44.3 24 53 146.2 39.1 27 47 332.7 83.4 25 100 There are 83-million leisure book (non-syllabus) readers, of which 39-million (47%) are urban and 44-millon (53%) are rural. Hindi emerges as the most preferred language for leisure reading (33%) and English as the second preferred language (43%) Perception and motivation How did you start reading leisure books? (% of youth readers) % of youth readers Learned reading at school 59.0 Parents encouraged to read 18.8 Much later and it has nothing to do with school or family 12.5 While travelling 5.8 9.5 Reading period was interesting and useful 83.3 64.7 74.9 Reasons for decline in reading (% of youth in agreement) Readers Non-readers Total Advent of TV, Internet,e-books etc 53.1 45.2 Poor reading culture 18.5 19.5 47.7 19.2 6.4 Lack of time 10.9 12.9 12.3 5.8 Bengali 6.0 Bengali 5.9 Cost factor 7.9 8.4 8.3 4.5 English 4.1 Gujarati 5.6 Lack of motivation 4.4 4.7 4.6 1.8 9 Oriya 3.6 Malayalam 3.8 Oriya 2.9 Lack of access to books 4.2 8.1 6.9 10 Assamese 3.0 Oriya 2.0 English 2.5 Other 0.9 1.2 1.1 4.4 11 Punjabi 1.3 Assamese 1.3 Assamese 2.2 12 English 1.2 Urdu 1.2 Punjabi 1.1 13 Others 2.2 Others 1.9 Others 2.2 4.9 3.2 3.2 5.2 3.4 3.2 3.2 46.1 0.5 1.9 2.4 2.4 0.2 Subscription of newspapers & magazines by source of income % of literate youth households Radio Internet <15 27.4 14.1 2.3 11.3 7.0 15-30 49.1 44.3 14.4 37.3 24.5 30-60 19.7 31.9 32.6 29.2 43.0 32,622 26,503 59,125 60-120 3.0 7.9 30.9 15.0 18.7 2,09,410 3,11,431 >120 0.9 1.8 19.9 7.2 6.8 87,787 1,57,222 2,45,009 Average time spent (Minutes/day) 32.4 43.9 97.6 60.9 69.9 13,994 24,453 38,447 52 259 71 12 177 20.7 Bengali Average time spent on different media (% distribution of youth by sources of information) Esti youth (in mn) 26.9 Had specific period in school timetable for leisure reading Gujarati 5.7 Magazine Television Total 19.4 7 16.8 (minutes) Newspaper Non-readers 49.5 8 1,02,021 IV. Sample Youth 14% 5.6 Readers 37.6 4.5 10.1 Teacher encouraged to read in the school All India 100.3 31.8 69.8 13.2 Motivation of reading (% of youth in agreement) 102.8 Unemployed 22% 22% Total 12.2 Primary Student 30% 32% Preferred language to read print media (% of reported youth) Population million % distribution Census NYRS Census NYRS Annual 2001 2009 2001 2009 growth (%) Distribution of literate youth by activity status (in %) 18.5 18.3 Male 1.1 Fashion/ Personal care 62.7 57.9 Female 10.7 Others Religion 13% 24% Total estimated literate youth million Watching television 8.1 21% 26% 7.5 Reading newspaper / magazines Sports 10.5 20.1 Total Outing with family/friends 56.6 50.0 77.8 Others Listening to music Distribution of literate youth by level of education Total Distribution of readers % Central Hobbies/Sports 53.8 Three fourths are religious, with highest proportion amongst Sikhs (93%), followed by Muslims (78%), Christians (77%) and Hindus (75%). One in three literate youth believes in astrology, and half of these say that it is based on scientific principles Share of readers (% of literate) Youth readers million Youth readers and their distribution by gender Sleeping 33.2 Others (Nature, 8.4 market, matrimonial, etc) 100 North-East 1.0 Reading leisure books 9.4 News & current events 25 East Preferred leisure activities - All India Radio Internet 83.4 West Literate youth % Health Distribution of literate youth by Gender Entertainment 332.7 North 28.9 Preference of information (% of reported youth) 53 47 South 30.1 Total 40.3 General Radio 45.9 Nearly 24% households have newspaper subscription (15% rural, 39% urban) and 8% (5% rural, 12% urban) magazines. Four out of every 7 households of graduate plus and, three out of every 8 urban households with literate youth get a newspaper 21 31 Total estimated literate youth million 34.4 Newspaper 69.9 Urban 9.8 44.1 39.4 Youth readers and their distribution by region 35.3 Television 22.7 ST 206.6 126.1 38.7 Science and technology Magazine Internet Distribution of readers % Urban 54.7 Sports 9 2 Primary 58.9 Rural NYRS, 2009 Literate youth population Total Rural Total Share of readers (% of literate) All India 71.8 Religious & spiritual Major source of information (% of youth) Per cent distribution of literate youth (population) by social group 25-35 yrs 12 Urban 81.5 8 80.5 5 Hindu 15 Census 2001 NTYRS, 2009 based on total Literate youth population population Youth readers million Rural 77.5 Current Affairs 23 24 Per cent distribution of literate youth by religion Total estimated literate youth million Music /Films 23 39 All India Youth readers and their distribution by location Literate youth % Magazines Newspaper % of literate youth households Youth Book Reading Youth interest in selected issues/topics - All India Subscription of newspapers & magazines 38 Population million % distribution Census NYRS Census NYRS Annual 2001 2009 2001 2009 growth (%) 57 Youth Demographics Agriculture labour 2.9 Self employed in non-agriculture 4.3 Casual labour 4.0 Self employed in non-agriculture Regular salary & wages Others (pension etc) 10.1 11.8 Newspaper Magazines are a useful source to 15.6% (21.5% urban, 12.0% rural) of the youth. And nearly 21% (22.5% urban, 20.6% rural) of youth listen to radio. Internet is accessed by 3.7% youth (7.7% urban, 1.3% rural) Magazines 15.8 10.9 10.6 15.5 29.0 35.6 39.6 * Youth = 13-35 years, Youth implies literate youth unless specified VitalToUnderstandYouthReadingCulture LetsMakeEvery15-25Year-OldAReader ProfBipanChandra Chairman,NationalBookTrust,India Nuzhat Hassan Director, National Book Trust, India NATIONAL BOOK TRUST, India was established in 1957 by our first Prime Minister Shri Jawaharlal Nehru as part of the mammoth nationbuildingexercisethatwastakenupimmediately after the independence in the social, political, economic and cultural fields. The idea was to create a public funded institution that could create good books, make them available to the general readers at the affordable prices and which would keep finding ways to understand andmeetthereadingneedsof the massesatlarge. Ithinkthatof alltheinstitutionsthatwerefoundedtoworkin theculturalfields,thefoundingof aninstitutionlikeNBTfor creating a learning and book reading society was the most visionaryone.Itissobecause,whilemostof theinstitutionshad aclear-cuttargetarealikeworkingforthetheatres,arts,literature etc, NBT was asked to work for the reading needs of the masses. With hardly one third of the population literateatthetimeof Indiasindependence,tobe able to visualize a society that needed to be nourishedonprogressiveandsecularbookstounderstand and sustain the basic foundations of the independent India was masterstroke. The Trust hasplayedavitalroleinprovidingqualitybooks toalltargetaudienceincludingchildren. In the light of the growing importance of the youthintheaffairsof thecountry ,theTrusttook an initiative to frame a National Action Plan for the Readership Development among the youth and entrusted the job of undertaking the first everNationalYouthReadershipSurveyfromthe perspective of book reading habit to the NCAER, probably oneof thebestintheworldtoconductsuchsurveysandanalyses. I believe that the findings of the survey will open up new windows to the understanding of the way the most energetic component of our population thinks and behaves when it comestobooksandreadingculture. WHEN THE NATIONAL BOOK TRUST, India was set up, its founding father Shri Jawaharlal Nehru talked about NBT serving as a kind of book hospital for finding out what generally stood in the way of books being purchased and read. National Book Trust, India had got a survey of Indian publishing done by NCAER on the occasion of its silver jubilee celebrations in 1982. Since that time many momentous changes have takenplace,andtheNBTfoundittherighttimeto takestockof thereadinghabits,patterns,trends, attitudes, etc. among the youth of the country Our golden ju. bileecelebrationsintheyear2007enabledustotakeuptheinitiative. It is needless to say that for any large scale book promotionandpublishingventuretosucceed,itisimperative tofindwaystoconnectandinteractwiththeyouthof thecountry which not only forms the largest chunk of our population , but demands a serious response from the intellectualsandpublishersintermsof theirreading needs in the fast changing socio-political and cultural landscape of our nation. With NCAER, theTrustformedanAdvisoryCommitteeof eminent personalities from different walks of life, who not only interacted with the NBT-NCAER teamcontinuouslybutalsoguidedandmoulded the contours of the study The target group for . the study taken is 13-35 years and NBT, India hopes to take its findings right into the realm of public debate so that a feasible National Action Plan for the Readership Development Among the Youth could be devised. Our ambitious plan is to make all youth in the age group of 15-25 years an ctive A Reader by the year 2025. Naturally the target is ambitious, , and to achieve it we wish to enlist the help, guidance and support of the policy makers, intellectuals, book lovers, publishingfraternity ,youthleaders,socialactivistsandthepeopleof thecountry .