Encouraging habit of book reading

The World Culture Score Index has conducted a global study to measure the amount of time that people around the world spend reading on a weekly basis. And our neighbouring country, India, has achieved the number one position on the list. According to the study, Indians spend 10 hours and 42 minutes a week in reading. India is followed by Thailand while China is in the third position. However, the list of 100 countries has not included Bangladesh, showing how poor we are in reading books.
Habits like reading books are seldom found in our society. There are a number of bookshops in most of our cities but they remain empty. There are some places in Dhaka city, where books are sold at cheap prices. Not many people visit such places.
The core reason behind the lack of visits is the lack of interest in reading books. From students to teachers and from parents to the children, all are now spending most of their precious time browsing on their smartphones. And the reading habit is dying gradually.
It is high time to tell children to spend more time with books rather than technological devices. Reading books opens the vision of a nation.
This not only helps to understand current problems but also enables us predict the future and come up with solutions to overcome them. We need books more than anything else. We also need to establish more and more libraries. The most important of all is that we must promote reading habits.

Ashikujaman Syed,
Research Assistant,
Bioinformatics Research Lab,
Center for Research Innovation and Development (CRID),
syedashikujaman@yahoo.com