Government makes grand plan to end year long celebrations of 125th bith anniversary of Dr Ambedkar

NEW DELHI: As the year-long Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar’s 125th birth anniversary celebrations end this April, the BJP government has lined up a grand finale — a memorial lecture by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and launch of a web portal with complete works of Ambedkar.

The social justice and empowerment ministry — the nodal ministry coordinating Dr Ambedkar’s birth anniversary celebrations — is all set to make the Constitution framer’s works accessible to the common man with the launch of a web portal www.DrAmbedkarwritings. gov.in.

This portal would have the collected works of Dr Ambedkar written in English and Marathi. It would also have translation of his works in nine other languages including Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Malyalam, Bangla, Gujarati and Odiya.Dr Ambedkar’s collected works has 18 books, including a dictionary. His 14th book has two volumes and 17th and 18th books have three volumes each.

Though the ministry has not translated the dictionary, it has split Dr Ambedkar’s books in different parts as some books are 1,300 pages long.The government is planning to launch the portal in March. To begin with, Dr Ambedkar’s works would be put up in English and Hindi. As the government finishes its translation work in different languages, the collected works would be put up on the website.

A senior ministry official told ET, “This is the first attempt to put all the works online. So we would want a formal launch by the Prime Minister. At present, the portal is undergoing security checks before the formal launch.” The ministry is planning to have a high-profile launch.

It is considering holding a memorial lecture on Dr Ambedkar and his teachings. “Earlier there were suggestions of launching it at the award ceremony for winners of essay competitions on Dr Ambedkar in schools was held in January in New Delhi. But as the security check was not completed on the website, the launch did not happen. Now we are planning to ask the PM to unveil it,” said the senior official.