DesiKnowledge donates a book with every purchase

To celebrate International Literacy Day, Desi Knowledge, official Amar Chitra Katha partner, doubles its donation for every order in the month of September.

Customers will help donate a book to an underprivileged child every time they make a purchase on Desiknowledge, an online boostore carrying children's books, DVDs and other age-appropriate resources on Indian culture and mythology. The California based non-profit recently unveiled a redesigned, user-friendly website and brand new blog, The Balancing Desi. The blog serves as a platform for the Indian diaspora to connect and share views on the experience of living and raising children overseas. As part of their mission to give back, Desi Knowledge, official partner of Amar Chitra Katha Comics in USA and Canada, has pledged to donate a book to a child in need with every purchase.

The Desi Knowledge online store offers a diverse selection of picture books, Indian mythological and historical stories, CDs, DVDs, CD ROMs and children's comics in several Indian languages. The latest additions include bilingual Indian children's books that make teaching Indian children their mother tongue alongside English easier.

“Thank you for providing Indian parents the ACK(Amar Chitra Katha) way to introduce children to their culture and heritage and encourage them to learn more about India's history,” writes Renu, a mom and book lover from Atlanta, GA.

“Outstandingly helpful and useful site. My daughter loves the Hindi alphabet books,” says Swamy Vishanathan, a delighted customer from Palo Alto, CA. Shankar Rao summarizes it in a nutshell, “You have some really good selections for Indian kids to learn about our heritage and culture.”

Full report here PRWeb

A tribute to Mother Teresa

Amar Chitra Katha, a collection of timeless illustrated stories for the under-15 age group, recently launched an illustrated book on Mother Teresa to celebrate her 100th birth anniversary on August 26.
Known for stories based on epics and mythology, fables, folktales and about visionaries, Amar Chitra Katha has come up with a new title after four years.

“ACK Media is re-starting the launch of new titles in the Amar Chitra Katha series from August onwards. We will be launching a new title every two months now, with ‘Mother Teresa’ being the first one in the series”, said Savita Pai, VP- Product Management, ACK Media. “Mother Teresa was chosen as our come-back title because of the universality of the figure. And August 26 being her sentinel year was a perfect date to launch the book and take it to every kid and household for them to learn about a noble figure like Mother and learn from her great deeds.” The new Amar Chitra Katha on Mother Teresa is a 40 page story about the Mother life and has been created in association with the Missionaries of Charity.

Full report here New Indian Express

New book on Mother Teresa's life

On the occasion of Mother Teresa’s birth centenary, comic book label Amar Chitra Katha has launched a special title, tracking the life and times of the nun of Albanian descent who later became an Indian citizen. This is the first title by the comic book label in four years.

Amar Chitra Katha (ACK) has come up with a special comic book on the life and works of the Mother titled 'Little Acts of Love'. The publishers believe that the best way to communicate with children is through the language of pictures. Since a picture speaks a thousand words, it’s the best way to convey Mother Teresa’s message to the youngsters. “We have come up with 25000 prints… that's the most for one book that we have come up with”, Sameer Patil, CEO, ACK.

This 32-page-book tells the story of Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu from her birth in Macedonia to her early years as a teacher and then moving on to her working career. Mother, from a very young age, was inclined towards helping people in distress. She volunteered to join the missionary in India and eventually landed in Calcutta, teaching at Loreto Convent. But what she wanted was to work for the people who needed God's help the most - the destitute and the helpless. It was a call from God, which she heard and answered.

Full report here IBN Live

Food for thought

Enid Blyton has been the founding stone on which several writers have built their careers and it was no different for Namita Dayal. “I think I have always enjoyed creating and exploring different worlds and making up stories in my head,” says Namita, about a habit that was probably supplemented by all the Amar Chitra Kathas and Enid Blytons that dominated a large portion of her staple reading diet.

Namita was in town for the launch of her latest book, Aftertaste in Landmark. . Set in the 60's, this book follows the drama around a dysfunctional joint family on the verge of bankruptcy. The book is fiction with features Namita has stolen from real life.

Namita had an upbringing that balanced her parallel lives with precision; a modern school and western standards of education with a very traditional gurukul world of Hindustani classical music, and it was in this miraculous world of classical music she found her first book, The Music Room, which Pandit Ravi Shankar called a must read for every musician and music lover.

Full report here Hindu

ACK scripts comeback with Mother Teresa

ACK Media, the publisher of the country’s largest selling comic book series, Amar Chitra Katha, is launching a new title on Mother Teresa after a hiatus of four years.

Savita Pai, vice-president, product management, ACK Media, said: “Mother Teresa is a figure of international acclaim. Despite being an Albanian by birth, she devoted her life to this country. Our new title will celebrate her 100th birth anniversary.”

“Our last title was launched in 2006. With the title on Mother Teresa, we will initiate the launch of a new line of ACK series, based on characters across the entire gamut of history, mythology, epics, fables and classical literature,” Pai said. The new titles will be launched every two months, starting August 2010. Apart from the title on Mother Teresa, five more titles are in the pipeline. Work is at an advanced stage and the products are expected to be launched over a year.

The titles would adhere to the traditional ACK format of story telling. Modern technology would be used to sharpen graphic representations of characters.

Apart from the print version, the title on Mother Teresa would be available online at the group’s website, indiaplaza, indiatimes, flipkart. It would also be available on Vodafone and iPhone as a mobile comic, and on Amazon and Kindle.

Full report here Business Standard

Mother Teresa to come alive in a comic book

Amar Chitra Katha (ACK), the publisher of Tinkle Digest and illustrated mythological books, will launch a book on Mother Teresa on August 26 to celebrate her 100th birth anniversary.

The book will narrate how Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, an Albanian by birth, made India her home and worked towards alleviating poverty and loneliness. After her death in 1997, she was beatified by Pope John Paul II and given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.

“What inspired a 12-year-old girl to travel to a far-away country to help the poor and bring joy to thousands of lives forms the crux of the story,” said Savita Pai, VP, product management, ACK Media.

Targeted at readers aged between 8-14 years, Pai said the book aims to tell children that it is never too early to fix a goal in life. “August 26, 2010, being the sentinel year of Mother Teresa’s birth is the perfect day to make people learn from a noble figure like her,” she said.

Full report here DNA

Toy story

Two dinky little toys take their place by the side of Samir Patil, the 39-year-old CEO of ACK Media, at the company’s headquarters in in Mumbai. One is of Suppandi, a square-headed country bumpkin bustling with initiative for things that were bound to fail; the other is of Shikari Shambhu, a hunter whose jungle-time is spent running away from animals. The three-dimensional avatars of the two-dimensional characters from Tinkle comics are Patil’s frontline warriors in his bid to capture a bigger slice of the country’s growing ‘edu-tainment’ market.

Under Patil, ACK Media — owner of decades-old brands such as Amar Chitra Katha, Tinkle and Karadi Tales — has scaled up its ambition. Comics will still be its core business, but there will now be a toy story, too. Fuelling this new venture is an investment by Elephant Capital, a private equity fund floated by Dabur group promoter Gaurav Burman that has acquired a 30 per cent stake in the Rs 75-crore business. ACK’s chief operating officer Ashish Goel says, “The target for this financial year is Rs 125-150 crore.”

Patil’s ambitions go much farther and higher: “I want to be the Walt Disney of India and create the largest family entertainment company. There are three places kids today go to — malls, schools and television. We will be there in all three.”

Full report here Hindustan Times

Amar Chitra Katha publisher buys IBH

ACK Media, which owns brands such as Amar Chitra Katha, Tinkle and Karadi Tales, has acquired a 100% stake in India Book House Pvt. Ltd (IBH), one of the largest and oldest distribution networks for books and other published material.

The new entity, IBH Books and Magazines Distributors Pvt. Ltd, will be one of the largest integrated publishing and distribution companies in India.

ACK Media, registered as Amar Chitra Katha Pvt. Ltd, is also looking to raise nearly Rs100 crore in the next 18 months to expand its portfolio of products and promote itself in India and abroad.

“The new entity would have (a) robust infrastructure of 10 offices in major metro cities across India, a distribution network that includes over 2,500 stores and over 22,000 vendors, thus allowing us to penetrate not just the top 12 cities, but the top 400 cities in India in a very meaningful manner,” said Ashish Goel, chief operating and financial officer of ACK Media.

Full report here Mint

From Superhero to Supremo: A saga of comics

The illustrations of 'Supremo' series were designed by renowned art director Pratap Mullick of Amar Chitra Katha fame. And the surprise of surprises- the script consultant of the Supremo series was none other than noted filmmaker and lyricist Gulzar.

Those were not the days of Internet or play stations, when youngsters grew up among comic books. From the treasure trove of Amar Chitra Katha, the unputdownable ‘Tinkle’, to a plethora of fictional characters - mostly superheroes in the forms of Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Phantom, the magician Mandrake and his constant companion Luthur, the tiny Tintin and his funny gang, Asterix and what not, comic books had a wide range and variety to offer. Not to forget the desi superhero Bahadur and his consort Bela of Indrajal Comics series.

But amidst these, whole lot of varied collections, something unusual made its presence felt. A whole series of comic books on Amitabh Bachchan! I bet today’s youngsters have not even heard of that and will find it hard to believe. Sounds incredible, but it was a reality somewhere in the early eighties. The comic character was name Supremo and was supposed to be the alter ego of Amitabh Bachchan.

Full report here Merinews

For old times' sake!

The ‘old wine in a new bottle’ adage has found new takers. And interestingly, they are kids. There is a revival of interest among children in books, films and special DVDs from the old times.

A tour of the different bookstores in the city reveals that there has been huge demand for stuff from the olden days in the children’s section. For example, The Famous Five, The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew have been consistent bestsellers. And a few more have joined the list now. Amar Chitra Katha’s mythological series like the Ramayana and Mahabharata surprisingly are doing astounding business along with the ever-increasing interest in historical heroes.

Shivaraman Balakrishnan, deputy manager marketing of Crosswords, says, “The children’s section is very important for our stores as it constitutes 23% of our total sales. The classics like Mahabharata and Panchatantra along with all-time favourites like Enid Blyton creations are doing amazingly well.”

Full report here DNA

ACK Media looking to buy IBH

ACK Media, the owner of brands such as Amar Chitra Katha, Tinkle and Karadi Tales, is evaluating the prospect of buying out India Book House Pvt. Ltd (IBH), one of the oldest and largest distribution networks for books and other published material, in a deal that could create an integrated publishing and distribution company, one of the largest of its type in India.

“Yes, we are in the process of evaluating (it) so I would not like to make any detailed comment. However, we are going to be very aggressive about establishing an end-to-end content creation and distribution capability. The company is also going to focus on expanding its direct reach through online and subscriptions,” said Samir Patil, founder and chief executive of ACK Media, or Amar Chitra Katha Pvt. Ltd. Deepak Mirchandani, managing director and chief executive of IBH, declined to comment on the matter.

Much like consumer product companies or media conglomerates that tend to control their distribution channels, ACK Media is looking to consolidate at every level.

Full report here Mint

Infosys mentor is comic book hero

Amar Chitra Katha will publish a comic book on IT czar Narayana Murthy as part of its efforts to have more contemporary icons as part of its title lineup.

ACK Chief Executive Samir Patil said it was at the ideation stage still. The company would look at the story/biography and then mould it for using it in a comic book format.

Another book is scheduled to be on Sachin Tendulkar.

Amar Chitra Katha is famous for bringing figures from history and mythology in the comic book format. However it has not yet profiled a living person in its history.