Last year, the world was grappled by the Covid-19 pandemic and all we got to hear was related to an upsurge in the number of infections and casualties of the same. Though we have entered 2021, coronavirus and its grim has not spared us at all. In lieu to keep distressed at bay, three Gurugram boys-- Abhimanyu, Agastya, and Mihir Rao, students of class 10 from Shiv Nadar School, made their minds to come up with something interesting to spread positivity among the people. The trio launched their own e-newsletter "The Paperless Press," whose only focus was to bring optimism and good news for all age groups.
The trio thought of it initially in July 2020, when they were wondering what can they do to bring a change in these distressing times.
"It was then when we decided to launch our own source of joy," Agastya said.
Of the trio, Agastya and Abhimanyu are twins while Mihir has been their best friend for over five years now.
"We get along over the Marvel universe reading, and computer games," Abhimanyu shared.
Notably, this trio has so far published 32 newsletter digests with 4 interludes published during their exams. Surprisingly, the entire work from conceptualizing the theme, researching for the articles, conducting interviews, and even editing the articles, everything is being done by them.
The trio is smart, they abide by the name of their e-paper 'The Paperless Press.'
"We were sure of not making this newsletter print on paper and at the same time, we wanted to bring positive news to our readers. Being an online version helped with the paperless bit and hence the name," Agastya said.
The piece which was written by Abhimanyu was on how to stay busy during the lockdown to avoid the temptation of going out. We were inspired by other subscribed newsletters, and with each new digest, new elements were added. We worked on movies, book recommendations, easy recipes to put together at home for quite some time and now we all accept the contributions from our readers, Abhimanyu reiterated.
According to Mihir's notion of launching a newsletter, "We wanted a break from grave COVID-19 situation. Being confined at home, switching between online learning and homework, was all a bit too much."
Another article was written by Agastya on the significance of taking about taking small breaks in between the online classes. In his writing, he called for lesser homework because even that involved looking at the computer screen for prolonged hours. From this Mihir, who is also a very enthusiastic gamer, wrote about the future of gaming.
Adding further, Abhimanyu says, "In the beginning, we worked on recommending books and movies but now we have moved to a video format. It was with this that we realized the potential of video format as people generally click faster on the video links."
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The trio does not seek an adult's help to wrap their work as they use Google Docs to collaborate their work as the platform gives them the flexibility of working on the same document. However initially it was hard for them, now it flows smoothly. They only work for about four hours a week to prepare a digest and they enjoy doing their work. Though, the time taken on each article varies to its length.
Agastya shared the process and said, "We start brainstorming on Wednesday and by Sunday we have the digest ready to send out."
As of now, there are more than 170 subscribers, the team looks forward to getting more readers to subscribe to The Paperless Press.