Fact Check: Is Ministry of Human Resources giving free access to National Digital Library?

Claim: Ministry of Human Resources is giving free access to National Digital Library and its contents

Rating: True

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What is rumour about?

• viral WhatsApp mess states how Union Ministry of Human Resources has opened  National Digital Library of India for public during current lockdown. 
• This is done to ensure that people utilise ir lockdown period for reading. ministry has given free access to 3,82,00, 000 books and periodicals for this purpose. 
• books are available digitally so y can be accessed through any device like smartphones, tablets, computer, where people need to visit this link - https://ndl.iitkgp.ac.in/

Im courtesy: WhatsApp forwards

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Who started rumour?

• Some citizens of India received mess on ir WhatsApp messenger; however, some even received it on ir SMS messaging service. 
• When link is opened, it shows general guidelines on how one can study through National Digital Library of India (NDLI), thus promoting "Study From Home" facility.
• According to basic guidelines, resources can be accessed without logging in; however, special resources would require login auntication. sections are separately arranged for school going and college students. People can also browse website by source as well as topic y need to study.

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Im courtesy: National Digital Library website

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Google Trends 

After an analysis of Google Trends with respect to National Digital Library being freely accessible in India rumour, one can see that people have been hugely interested to kw about same. maximum number of searches have been done on April 21, 2020, and trend seems to be increasing as of today. 

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Im courtesy: Google Trends 

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Republic World did a fact check 

• Republic World did a fact check on free access to  National Digital Library in India rumour which was circulating on WhatsApp, and claims were found to be True.

• NDLI was launched as a new initiative by MHRD in 2018 as a free source providing access to educational content that has been collated from numerous national and international sources. It is a single-window platform to make education available to anyone and everyone. 

• educational resources are made available for students starting from primary to postgraduate levels. sources are from multiple subject domains which take count to 47 million number of items that are available on NDLI website. site is mand by IIT Kharagpur. resources are made available in more than 400 different langus. website gars content made by a variety of institutions and ir repositories.

• Students can access technical reports, books, sis, audio lectures, annual reports, manuals, manuscripts, video lectures, web courses, question papers and solutions and much more.

• NDLI website sources its content from many institutional repositories; however, featured sources include NPTEL, LibriVox, NCERT, KRISHIKOSH, and INFLIBNET.

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