Readings On History is a learning hub for the history students in general and history students enrolled in undergraduate courses across India. As a course heavily dependent on research and analysis based off of multiple reading resources, some of the most affected are the students who come from the Hindi speaking belt since there is a paucity of well-located libraries where books in Hindi are available, and most of the time because they can’t afford to buy personal copies. The other set of students who suffer massively are visually challenged ones. It would be wrong to say that the English medium students do well or don’t need such e-portals just because there are ample books available in English, rather they even need guidance in terms of locating the right article for the right sub-topics of the units.
Keeping all this in mind, the student volunteers under guidance from Dr Rohan Srivastava, present to the readers a diligently and carefully curated island of educational insight through this e-platform for all the important readings on History for the Under-Graduate Course. The syllabus that we followed is prescribed in University of Delhi History (Honors), however, the same syllabus is taught more or less in other universities of India at the same level.
Last but not the least, under our ambitious course series project of regional languages we have launched our first course on Manipuri. You can refer to the ‘Regional Language’ section to know more about it. Courses for more Indian regional languages will be released in future. So, stay tuned for that.
All this cannot be achieved without a well coordinated team of dedicated individuals. Therefore, we would like to thank the students who took out time from their busy schedules of attending lectures, writing assignments, giving presentations while also ensuring that this voluntary not-for-profit e-portal is up and running before most of the universities across India hit for semester examinations. It takes both courage and empathy to volunteer for such a noble cause. All of them ran from pillar to post, with a bright and glittery smile on their faces, to collect the articles from various libraries.
Marisha Mehra – the executor and manager of this mammoth task; Himantika Mann, Paati Purohit, Sruthi Balakrishnan and Nancy Thakran – the wonderful people who painstakingly did the job of uploading, editing, proofreading every source material; Anushka Singh, Kritika Deora, Namita Lohani, Niveda Nair, Tanisha Minocha, Vijaylaxmi Saroj, Manisha Kujur – for sitting for exhausting long hours in libraries and at home to scan the chapters and upload it on time; Saundarya Goswami, Vaishnavi Vatsayan, Monika - were equally involved and stood by us whenever the team required; and finally Sampurna Dutta - our outstanding artist who took time out of her busy Tabla Classes, Photography Club and Painting Canvases; and Sarah Raza – who besides her busy internship volunteered herself to help us to get the work done on time. Thanks each one of you, again and again!
Some of the members chose to part ways with the organization for their own endeavors while a few joined us to help the spirit of the organization remain intact, namely, Sakshi Sharma, Bhavya Gaur, Dakshita Bishnoi, Nitisha Malik, Ningthoujam Shilpa Devi, Nandini Sharma and Malya Singh. `
Faculty involved in the curation of the project:
Dr. Rohan Srivastava
Dr. Santoshi Kumari