KRVP

Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishat

Sometime in January 1977, J. R. Lakshmana Rao received an invitation from the Kerala Shastra Sahitya Parishat (KSSP) to be its guest at its annual conference to be held in Quilon. Started as an association of writers of popular science in Malayalam, KSSP had grown in the next decade and half into a mass organization of young and enthusiastic popularisers of science who not only wrote popular science but also taught school children to conduct scientific experiments with inexpensive materials available at home, held jathas and scientific exhibitions and arranged popular science lectures in street corners. They intended to provide an impetus to the formation of similar organizations in other linguistic areas of our country by identifying popular science writers in sister languages and inviting them to their annual gatherings. That was how J. R. Lakshmana Rao had received the invitation.

He accepted the invitation and went to Quilon. The efforts of KSSP yielded the expected results, at any rate, in J. R. Lakshmana Rao‘s case. For, when he returned to Mysore after spending three days in Quilon and witnessing KSSP‘s activities there, he started taking steps to set up a similar organization in Karnataka. He met his friend M. A. Sethu Rao and narrated to him his experiences in Quilon and sought his help in establishing an organization for popularising science since he was, at that time, the executive secretary of the Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology (KSCST), an organization whose aims and objectives included popularization of science.

M. A. Sethu Rao took up the matter and, as the first step, invited Dr. M. P. Parameswaran, one of the leading lights of KSSP, to give a seminar on the origin and growth of KSSP. During the discussions held after the talk, it was resolved to find some method to identify individuals in different parts of Karnataka who would extend their cooperation in the venture. It was felt that the best way was to start a popular science magazine in Kannada which could cater to senior high school students and members of the public whose knowledge of science was, at least, of that level. It was estimated that the cost of printing and distribution of 5000 copies of a 24 page journal to identified high schools and individuals would be about Rs. 80,000. KSCST came forward to sanction the amount. As a result, an experimental issue of the journal Balavijnana appeared in June 1978, under the editorship of J. R. Lakshmana Rao and assisted by an editorial committee consisting of D. R. Balurgi, M. A. Sethu Rao and Sreemathi Hariprasad.

A questionnaire was sent to all those who had received the experimental copy to elicit their opinion about the feasibility of launching such a journal and inviting their suggestions for its improvement. Encouraged by the response, the first issue of Balavijnana appeared on 1st November the Rajyotsava day of 1978. The annual subscription for the general public was fixed at eight Rupees and for students, six Rupees.

KSCST was generous enough to treat the whole exercise as an experiment and to keep the entire amount collected as subscription for the journal in a separate account so that it could hand over the whole amount as seed money for the newly formed organization. It took nearly two years for Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishat (KRVP) to be launched. 

Finally, the first self-appointed executive committee of the newly formed KRVP met in June 1980 with Dr. H. Narasimhaiah as president and M. A. Sethu Rao as secretary.

A committee of three, consisting of M. A. Sethu Rao, J. R. Lakshmana Rao and A. Krishna Bhat was entrusted with the task of preparing bye-laws governing the organization. The committee met several times to create the bye-laws to the entire satisfaction of the executive committee and the organization was registered on 11 November, 1980 with The Registrar of Co-operative Societies.