29 Assamese magazines including Orunodoi to be digitally available from October

In a significant attempt to give a digital boost to the Assamese magazines beginning from the golden era of Orunodoi, the first magazine of Assam that was published from Sivasagar in 1846, will be now available in digital format by the end of October.

This ambitious project of digitalization of Assamese magazines is initiated by Nanda Talukdar Foundation along with Mrinal Talukdar, an independent journalist from Assam, Naba Goswami, a US-based surgeon, and other prominent figures from the literary background.

The Digitalization work started in the month of June 2022 and 29 magazines have been digitalized till the month of September namely Orunodoi (1848), Jonaki (1902, 1903, 1904), Asom Hitoishi (1925, 1926), Bijulee (1892,1902), Bahi (1913, 1915, 1917,1923, 1925, 1928,,1929,1930, 1936), Jayanti (1938, 1940, 1941, 1945, 1952), Pachowa (1948), Janambhumi (1922) Nabajug (1965 1966), Deepak (1969), Urulee (1959), Awahon 1930 1931 1934 1938 1939 1954 1955 1955 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1966, 1966, 1967, 1971, 1973), Panchayjanya (1970), palasi (1971), Chetana (1925), Amar Alochoini (1973), Junbiri (1980), Saptsikha (1980), Patrika (1926, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1979), Moina (1945), Alochoni (1938), Milon (1925), Moina (1945), Alochoni (1938), Milon (1925), Monideep (1960, 1961, 1962, 1965, 1966, 1968, 1969), Ramedhenu (1950, 1951, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961 1962 ,1963, 1964, 1979), Hundor (1968), Pratidhowni (1968), Chitrapot (1971), Jagriti (1970), Uttarkal (1970).

Jonbai (1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965), Ronghhor (1948, 1949), Jonbiri (1969), Chetana (1919, 1923, 1927), Prakash (3rd Vol 4th Vol 5th Vol) Usha (1906, 1907, 1908, 1909), Assam Bandhab (1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,1919), Parijat (1949) will also be digitally available for the readers soon.

Talking exclusively to IndiaTodayNE, Mrinal Talukdar, the secretary of the NTF said, “for how long people will go to libraries to read magazines, and how far one can keep the books? Since 1846, Assam has been publishing various books, journals, and magazines. After the advent of technology, we house a large number of 19th century and the first half of the last century in the Nanda Talukdar Foundation (NTF). We have been pioneering digitalization for future generations by scanning these copies and keeping them on our server”.

Calling it an ambitious ‘community project’ he further added that NTF is receiving technical support from Amtron and the primary goal of digitization is to preserve it for history and make it accessible to all via the internet.

“However, with the collaboration of Amtron, access to the much-needed server has been established as it is extremely costly for any private organization to maintain a dedicated server for a huge repository. During the same time, noted US-based Surgeon Dr Naba Goswami came forward and supported the digitalization process”, he added.

Talukdar further informed IndiaTodayNE that many universities have joined the project and started their work to preserve Assamese literature. Professor Shruti Goswami from a private university has come on her own with few students and currently working in the ‘Jonaki’ magazine.

The universities have a tremendous amount of books but no one is taking the initiative as they are not aware of this fact. Today, we can get anything by searching on Google but Assamese books and magazines are still not available on the internet. “If the British can find out their history of the 17th century, why can’t we? Instead of giving lectures to preserve our literature, we should work for it. My father started this and I’m still carrying on with this work for the past 30 years”.

This is noteworthy that NTF primarily runs on the interest generated from the corpus fund, which in turn has been created from the proceeds of all the books written by Mrinal Talukdar besides occasional consultancy works for various organizations to generate funds.