Same Language Subtitling for Literacy Brij Kothari RAPIDLY approaching the year 2000, India still has one-third of the world's non- literates. The low level of literacy, both in terms of rate and quality, is to a great degree maintained by frequent relapse into illiteracy or stagnation of semiand neo- literates' skills. Thus, many short stints in school and adult literacy programmes are wasted because they very often fail to push the participants above the minimum threshold of learning. But what happens within the classroom is not as much the topic of this article as what could happen outside it, A key factor responsible for India's slow progress with literacy is infrequent reading outside the classroom, sometimes due to lack of opportunity and/ or individual motivation but more significantly due to the absence of a reading environment. Television, which is rapidly making inroads into rural and urban homes, is a medium that could dramatically alter this bleak scenario by building an inviting environment for reading, an environment which creates reading opportunity and motivates.
