Students from IIT Kharagpur upload videos on WHO guidelines in regional languages

A students' group at IIT Kharagpur has uploaded videos on social media explaining the WHO guidelines on the precautions to be taken to contain the spread of the coronavirus in 12 Indian languages for people to clearly understand the advisory.

Vision Prabaho, a students' group known for its environmental activities on the institutes campus, has uploaded videos on the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines in Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu, a member of the organisation said on Wednesday.

"Regional languages will make the advisory reach even the remotest part of the country and avoid misinformation," Biswaroop Mondal, a member of the group said. Members of the group initially uploaded a video on the advisory in Bengali for the local people, he said.

However, other students of the institute urged the group to upload the videos in other languages as well, Mondal said. Within a day, videos in five different languages were uploaded on social media, and in another two days, the count reached 12, he said. The efforts of the 20-member group have been lauded by Minister of State for Human Resource Development Sanjay Dhotre in a social media post.

"We are now trying to make videos in Maithili, Santhali, Nagamese and Kokborok," another member of the group said. The institute is proud of the students who are fulfilling their social responsibilities, a spokesperson for IIT Kharagpur said.