Coronavirus lockdown: National Book Trust offers free download of books

To encourage reading during the nationwide lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, the National Book Trust (NBT) is providing its select and best-selling titles for free download. People across the country are restricted to their homes on account of the 21-day lockdown to evade the spread of coronavirus. Under the #StayHomeIndiaWithBooks initiative, more than 100 books are accessible to download from the NBT website, a sovereign organisation under the HRD Ministry. According to HRD ministry official, the books can be accessed in Sanskrit, Hindi, Bangla, English, Asamiya, Marathi, Odia, Kokborok, Mizo, Bodo, Nepali, Tamil, Punjabi, Telugu, Kannada and Urdu. The books cover all genres of biography, fiction, teacher’s handbook, popular science and majorly books for young adults and children.

The official further stated that apart from the books mentioned above, there are books by Premchand, Tagore and books on Mahatma Gandhi. To the list, more titles are meant to be added. The select titles accessible to download also include-- Women Scientists in India, Activity-Based Learning Science, A Touch of Glass, Holidays Have Come, Animals You can't Forget, Nine Little Birds, The Puzzle, Gandhi Tatva Satkam, Gandhi: Warrior of Non-Violence, and many more. The official further stated that the PDFs were for reading only and any illegal or commercial use was not permitted.

Talking about the coronavirus cases, almost 90 more coronavirus positive cases were found in India taking the overall cases to 606 on Wednesday while the number of deaths was 10. The number of active COVID-19 cases was 553 while 43 people have been treated, discharged or migrated. The 606 positive cases consist of 43 foreign nationals.

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