Gurudath Bantwalkar is currently the Assistant Director at the World Institute of Konkani Language, World Konkani Centre, Mangalore. Prior to this Gurudath led the branch office of a Mangalore-based advertising agency in New Delhi.At the World Konkani Centre, apart from several other activities related to the Konkani language, culture and people, the publication and promotion of books in and from Konkani is also undertaken. The Centre has published a series of pictorial children’s books, based on Konkani folk tales, and is now in the process of converting them into ebooks with the “Read Aloud” feature.
The Centre has also developed a tool, KONKANVERTER (www.konkanverter.com) for the transliteration of Konkani texts written in 4 different scripts. Konkanverter has resulted in the increase of inter-regional interaction in Konkani literature. The project will further evolve to release browser plug-ins for Konkani scripts enabling the inter-regional readership for Konkani websites.
In addition, the Centre has organised several workshops in translation of literature, and has installed awards in literature. It has also set up an exclusive Book Shoppe (http://stores.ebay.in/
Gurudath believe there are still innumerable stories within the smaller communities of the world which have still not been read by the majority. His publishing philosophy is that “it’s time now to read them”.