An attempt to help raise awareness of publishing - The Tejeshwar Singh College of Publishing

Tejeshwar Singh was a pioneer in Indian publishing. He defined many aspects of publishing that made up the foundation of India’s publishing industry. Besides being the first Managing Director of SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd (a company he co-founded) he was a consultant to many small and medium independent publishers.

The Tejeshwar Singh College of Publishing is an attempt to help raise awareness of publishing. Its main aims are:

1. To help universities and colleges in creating courseware that teach aspects of publishing.

2. To help teachers train in imparting knowledge about publishing.

3. To assist professors, lecturers, assistants create their own publishing programs and/or publish their work internationally.

The college aims to work with universities and institutions to conduct workshops that train learners in the best practices in publishing and knowledge production, as well as developing syllabi for postgraduate courses in publishing for university departments across the country. The college intends to work towards making Publishing more visible, accessible and sought after as a discipline, and in turn as a preferred career choice for bright young professionals. It also hopes to support scholars, writers and editors in honing their skills to be able to best present their writing and research, as well as to provide important information so that they can make informed publication choices. The college hopes to familiarise learners with the most cutting-edge, innovative new systems and practices in Publishing.

Speaking about this initiative, eminent sociologist Prof TN Madan the person responsible for getting Tejeshwar to co-found SAGE in India in 1981 said

“Tejeshwar Singh brought innovativeness, high quality, and vigour into the field of social science publishing in India. This was at a critical juncture when social science teaching and research were expanding rapidly in India, but there was a lack of good quality reading materials , including articles in Indian journals, authored by Indian scholars. The growth of SAGE in recent years is a tribute to his sterling contributions and genius as well as to the present leadership of the company.”

One of the world’s most distinguished historians, Romila Thapar who has been associated with the Tejeshwar Singh Memorial Initiative that was started in 2009 said

"Given the problems that publishing houses have in finding qualified and professionally trained people for the various jobs involved in the production of books, it seems a worthwhile idea to establish a place where such persons can be trained. We can then hopefully look forward to books of better quality".

Prof Surendra Munshi who has been a long time SAGE author and associated with the Tejeshwar Singh Memorial Initiative since 2009 mentioned that

“The contribution of Tejeshwar Singh to Indian publishing is well known. I am glad that SAGE is setting up a college of publishing in his name. I wish the endeavour all success.”

The college will be supported by SAGE Publishing. Arpita Das of Yoda Press will be a partner in this endeavour. She worked with SAGE India in an early part of her career and trained under Tejeshwar Singh. She has taught for more than a decade on the National Book Trust Publishing Course and has been Adjunct Faculty on the MA Diploma Programme in Publishing at Ambedkar University in Delhi in 2013 and 2014. She also set up the Word Lab at the Indian Institute of Human Settlements in Bangalore between 2014 and 2017 and ran the Writing Skills Lab there. She is co-founder of Yoda Press that continues to publish academic works specializing in a variety of socially relevant issues.