Reading roots

Bookganga.com aims to revive sales of Indian regional literature and curb piracy of e-books

It was at a preview of Apple’s iPad that US-based IT entrepreneur Mandar Joglekar realised that with the increasing popularity of e-reading across the globe, there was still scope to revive Indian literature. “While preparing a presentation for American Newspaper Association on the next generation’s reading habits, I found it compelling that the older newspapers there were heading towards bankruptcy due to decreasing circulation and ad revenues. There is little doubt that India will soon follow suit and, using this as an advantage, I thought it is time to launch an initiative that will bring dying Indian literature to its patrons,” he explains.

So, on August 30, Joglekar — who runs multiple internet ventures for the NRI audience, like citizen journalism website globalmarathi.com and social networking initiative myvishwa.com — launched bookganga.com. This, Joglekar hopes, will become the amazon.com for Indian literature soon. The website already has on sale close to 7,000 titles across English, Hindi, Marathi and Sanskrit in the e-book as well as hard copy format. The website, within three weeks, is already attending to more than 150 orders from within India and many others from countries like Australia, Peru and the US.

Full report here Indian Express