Amitabh Bachchan to be brand ambassador of reading festival

MUMBAI: Superstar Amitabh Bachchan has been chosen as the brand ambassador of the Mahavachan Utsav 2024 (Mega Reading Festival 2024) to be held from July 22 to August 30 in the state. Through this initiative, the state school education department aims to foster a love for extracurricular reading among students.

The primary goals of this festival are to inculcate a reading culture among students that goes beyond the curriculum, to cultivate a taste for reading among students, connect them with Marathi language, literature, and culture, and enhance their personality development, creativity, and linguistic skills.

The festival will be organised in collaboration with the organisation, Read India Celebration. The project director of the Maharashtra Primary Education Council has been tasked with creating a dedicated web portal where students can select various literary stories, novels, autobiographies, and other works by renowned Marathi authors, thereby getting a chance to choose content outside the regular syllabus.

As per the government resolution (GR), participants in the festival will read the selected literature, reflect on it, and upload their thoughts in a written format of 150 to 200 words on the Mahavachan Utsav 2024 portal. Additionally, they will submit a one-minute video or audio clip summarising the books they have read. These submissions are a prerequisite for participation in the festival.

The GR also mandates that schools must organise book fairs covering various subjects, and school authorities are permitted to collaborate with private libraries for the exhibitions. Overall, education officers at the taluka level will be responsible for overseeing these activities.