Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad

Indira Gandhi Paryavaran Puraskar 1988

Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP) (Malayalam: കേരള ശാസ്ത്ര സാഹിത്യ പരിഷത്ത്, meaning: Kerala Science Literature Movement) is a voluntary organisation working in the state of Kerala, India. It is claimed to be a People's Science Movement. At the time of its founding in 1962 it was a 40-member group consisting of science writers and teachers with interest in science from a social perspective. Over the past four decades it has grown into a mass movement with a membership over 60,000, distributed in more than 2,300 units spread all over Kerala.

The original objective at the time of the founding of Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad (KSSP) was limited to publishing scientific literature in Malayalam, the local language, and popularizing science. However it was soon realized that publication and giving lessons alone were not enough to popularize science and extend its benefits to the common people. KSSP held that a privileged minority was monopolizing the benefits of science and technology and it results for their own profit at the expense of the majority. KSSP chose as its mission, the challenge of arming the people with the tools of science and technology so that they can reverse this process. Thus in 1974, KSSP decided to become a People's Science Movement and adopted "science for social revolution" as its motto. Over the past four decades it has grown into a massive people's science movement, with a membership of about 40,000 drawn from all walks of life and distributed in about 2,000 units within the state of Kerala. Over these years, it has also expanded its fields of interests and activities to almost all fields of human endeavor. The KSSP is involved, broadly in three types of activities: educative, agitate, and constructive, in areas like environment, health, education, energy, literacy, micro planning and development in general.

Presently K.P. Aravindan is the president and P. Muraleedharan is the General Secretary. Intellectuals such as M. K. Prasad, R. V. G. Menon, Kavumbayi Balakrishnan, B. Ekbal, K. Pappooty, M. P. Parameswaran, Kunhikkannan TP, etc. had been past presidents of the organization.

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