Vigyan Prasar's Publications: A comprehensive case study

Abstract

Vigyan Prasar (VP) was set up by the Department or Science and Technology, Govt. of India, as an autonomous organization in 1989 for taking up large-scale science popularization tasks. VP conducted a survey on its publications during Delhi book fair 2011 and got the feedback from the respondents. The feedback questionnaire having multiple choice questions and we got a spectrum of responses from the respondents. Thc questionnaire forms were distributed among the visitors of different community and age groups. It was found that majority of the respondents (88%) belong to young generation. It shows that today's youth is interested in popular sconce books. On the basis of the analysis of the data findings of the feedback study and the suggestions of the respondents, it indicated that Vigyan Prasar is playing a vital role in science communication in the society. Though the publications and other science popularization activities undertaken by VP are liked by majority of people, but the suggestions and findings reveal that the existing efforts being done by VP are not sufficient. They need to be expanded and strengthened so that the basic objectives of VP could be achieved.