Apart from science clubs, popular science books, science through newspapers and science outreach through social media for science popularisation, Vigyan Prasar now plans to reach every district with field-level activities.
After day-long deliberation on Wednesday, Vigyan Prasar — an autonomous organisation of the Department of Science and Technology, announced that in years to come, all the existing activities would be expanded into other Indian languages, including tribal dialects.
Languages chosen in this phase are — Kashmiri, Dogri, Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Assamese, Nepali, Maithili besides Hindi and English.
As the next phase of the SCoPE - Science Communication, Popularisation and Extension (SCoPE) - programme, Vigyan Prasar has embarked on a Project Vigyan Bhasha for SCoPE in Indian languages.
Work would be carried out with science communicators in all official languages. "From WhatsApp to Twitter, the written word is seeing a revival in the emerging social media communication. Conversations in the mother tongue are necessary for the comprehension of the message. Project Vigyan Bhasha would mobilise various agencies, including NGOs, to create a national effort to develop science popularisation content in all formats in all Indian languages," national coordinator SCoPE in Indian Languages, TV Venkateswaran said at a media conference.
Describing the many challenges and how devoted the team of science communicators from across the country helped achieve the goals, Director, Vigyan Prasar, Nakul Parashar said, "All media products are designed and developed in Indian languages."
The activities planned include, initiating and conducting science clubs, launching hands-on activities (which can be taken to areas without internet), developing learning kits, conducting science communication through literary forms, films and documentaries.
