Three Class X students of Loyola High School have come up with their own magazine, Morema - an acronym on Monthly Reader's Magazine - and will launch it this Saturday.
Its contents include politics, entertainment, sports, science and technology and inspirational stories. The students already operate an online news blog, www.primetimenews.zz.mu, active since May 10, which has over 5,000 active users.
A month ago, three Class X students - Shashwat Gautam, Bhaskar Thakur and Pranav Shekhar - came up with the idea of the magazine and putting it online. Avinash Ujjwal, state media consultant of Unicef Patna, said: "We read stories by the students and were impressed. That made us support them."
Shashwat said: "Our cover story for our first edition, 'AuRevoir Kalam', is on former president APJ Abdul Kalam."
Ten students have contributed with write-ups for this edition. They include eight Loyola High School students, Delhi University economics student Bhavya Sinha and English literature student from Hyderabad, Kishlay Kamal Mishra. "This magazine covers issues of the country and the idea is to spread awareness among youth. After the magazine's release, we are all set to launch our website, youthchronicle.in, for news and will also invite others to send stories for publication," said Shashwat, who came up with the idea of the magazine and web portal and also edits the stories.
"Our old website will be directed to this new site. We are replacing it as free websites have limited space. Now, we will upload on a paid website, hostinger.in, paying Rs 180 per month. Users can access our site for free. If it gains popularity, we will also launch a mobile app for it," Pranav said.
Bhaskar Thakur looked after the web and page-designing part. He suggested weekly stories for the online news site, asking students to take turns to do stories. "One of our schoolteachers, Bishwajeet Mukherjee, who taught us civics, helped us with ideas. He also contributed some of his stories," saóid Bhaskar, who wants to pursue computer science, become a successful entrepreneur and follow in the footsteps of Steve Jobs. The two stories that have gained popularity online are " Discovering Happiness" written by Kishlay (logged 700 readers), and "Female Feticide" by Bhaskar (logged 1,000 readers).
These students will sit for their board exam next year. Shashwat said: "Last year, on December 10 we created an e-learning website, buzzcopy.org, which puts up solutions to problems in NCERT books of Class IX and X, notes on physics, chemistry and mathematics and videos to explain specific laws."
School principal Satheesh said he and the school are proud of these students.
