Though the National Library Week is observed routinely every year, the Readers’ Circle of the Thuraiyur Branch Library and the Rotary Club of Thuraiyur decided to reach the unreached this year. Probably for the first time, they took the celebration to the Narikurvar community in the town. The event was aimed at sensitising the community to the need for educating their children, literacy and of course, taking to the reading habit by making use of public libraries. “We have been doing various programmes every year. But we wanted to do something different this year. Since there were many school dropouts in the Narikurava community, we decided to hold a sensitisation programme there,” said P.Balasundharam, librarian of Thuraiyur Branch Library. The organisers brought in Balan, a qualified teacher from the Narikurava community from Tiruvannamalai, to motivate the locals to educate their children. He explained how his parents supported his study up to B.A. and B.Ed even while eking out a living by selling handmade trinkets. “The community responded positively to our initiative. We have offered to enrol them as members of the library and even set up a reading room at the community settlement,” said Mr.Balasundharam.
It’s not just the farmers who are reaping the benefits of the copious monsoon rains of the past few weeks. The rain has also come as a boon to the students of agricultural college who are tracking crop pests – both eco-friendly and crop-damaging ones. A group of students of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University’s Anbil Dharmalingam Agricultural College and Research Institute have been working overtime in the afternoons to catch these pests. Carrying a net, they cover the sprawling 100-acre campus carefully to get hold of these winged beauties. “We target butterflies, damsel flies, dragon flies, etc,” said C.Dharani, M.Sharmila, S.Subashini, A.Kokila and Rahamathnisaha, all second year students of the college.
Starting Sunday, three members of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam have organised a two-day ‘lakshacharnai’ for Lord Ranganathaswamy at Srirangam temple. The special ‘pujai’ is to invoke the blessings of the Lord for restoration of Chief Ministership to their leader Jayalalithaa. Led by T.P.Poonachi, Minister for Khadi and Rural Industries, the party functionaries brought fruits, flowers and other articles for worship. According to temple sources, the first part of the ‘pujai’ commenced at about 3.00 p.m. and was performed for about four hours, marking the completion of 50,000 ‘archanai’. The second phase of the pujai would commence at 9.00 a.m. on Monday. The ‘pujai’ has been sponsored by G.Tirupathi, Srirangam unit secretary of the party, S.Tamizharasi, district women’s wing secretary of the party, and S.Kanagaraj, a party worker.
