IGNITING YOUNG MINDS

Challakere Yerriswamy is a scribe turned businessman. Earlier he was working for a famous Kannada tabloid, Lankesh. He started his own venture on the suggestion and financial help from P Lankesh, the owner of Lankesh as he did not have a sound income as a correspondent. Lankesh was a great journalist, author, playwright  and also a film director who helped many in shaping their career. He gave Yerriswamy Rs 3 lakh and insisted he start a newspaper in his district. Devoting some time on this line, Yerriswamy soon realised that he could hardly make any success. When he went to return the money to Lankesh, he again gave him another Rs 50,000 and told him to proceed in any other endeavour. Having a degree in  MSc (Physics), Yerriswamy had a mission in life, to inculcate scientific attitude in the children. Thus, he started his own entrepreneurship in the field of education, which he believed was a challenge to him.

He started the “Putani Vignana” (Kids’ Science) project in the Davanagere district to spread the basic knowledge of science to the primary level students. The intention was to bring out a magazine and to hold seminars, quiz programmes, etc. “Today, we have 24,000 subscriptions of our magazine all over Karnatka”, says Yerriswamy with pride.

With the initial success, they started making innovative handbooks related to science education. “We conduct programmes like ‘Science Talent’, ‘Science Lecturing’ and other competitive exams. This way
we reach two to three thousand subscribers per year,” he adds.

The readers are at present limited to higher primary school students and they have plans to expand the scheme to high schools.

Yerriswamy took a bank loan to expand the business. He then initiated a children development institution called ‘Tara Mandala’. With time, it had expanded its state network to 500 people. The institution holds various science programmes.

“To formulate and implement unique programmes for the comprehensive development of children so that they can be prepared to face future challenges is our motto. Still there is a long way to tread,”
admits Yerriswamy.

When asked about what was the difference that he witnessed between working in mainstream media and an entrepreneurship venture like this, he says, “The present one is a sort of academic journalism. It has no glory which prevails in the mainstream journalism.”

“Unless Lankesh would have insisted me to switch off from my earlier job, I could have never overcome the hardships of my life. In fact, he helped many
others the same way for a better life but they either spent the money for unwanted things or they
found nothing new to do. I owe my success to Lankesh,” Yerriswamy says