Turn off a light, read a book

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The State government plans to give gift coupons to children from families that reduce their monthly power consumption, Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac has said.

He was speaking after inaugurating the Reading Week celebrations organised here on Saturday by the Department of Education, the Information and Public Relations Department and the P.N. Panicker Foundation.

Children will be able to redeem these coupons against books in select stores, Dr. Isaac said.

Reading, he said, should be a search for the soul of a book, for the knowing the art of literature and for falling in love with reading itself. Reading should not be restricted to a single purpose. P. N. Panicker was one who motivated people to read the works of authors such as Kunchan Nambiar or Cherussery rather than those of foreign authors. Writers of today have to try and simplify their language so that they can be understood even by a school student, he said.