BASE Economics student from Bengaluru selected to represent India for Youth Ambassador Programme 2026

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Youth Ambassador Programme is one the largest youth-led literacy campaigns organised by the World Literacy Foundation in Australia. | Photo Credit: SUDHAKARA JAIN

Asmit Singh, a student at Dr. B.R. Ambedkar School of Economics University (BASE-U), has been named the 2026 Youth Literacy Ambassador for India.

Youth Ambassador Programme is one the largest youth-led literacy campaigns organised by the World Literacy Foundation (WLF) in Australia. It aims to empower young people aged 16 to 25 to advocate for literacy in their own communities.

According to the WLF, globally, 770 million people cannot read a single word, and another two billion struggle to read a sentence. In low-income households, 72% of children face reading difficulties, contributing to long-term social and economic disadvantage. This is where youth ambassadors like Singh will play an important in helping kids develop reading skills.

Speaking to The Hindu, Singh said, “It is a moment of pride for me as I will be joining 900 other young leaders from 101 countries. I will work in cohort with other youth ambassadors during the online sessions conducted for the next three months. As soon as I got to know about this programme, I applied for it and got selected after various rounds of interviews.”

He believes that lessons learnt in this programme will help him tackle rising crisis of reading in India. “The online sessions have begun on June 8, and I am able to learn and understand the reasons behind low literacy or reading skills among people in other countries too,” he added.

Singh, who is in his second year of BSc Economics, highlighted a lack of accessibility to books and increased screen time in low-income communitie. “Too many children are missing out on the joy of reading simply because they don’t have books at home. I want to help change that and show young people that reading can open doors for them to the world. Also, screens have also taken over reading time, so this needs to be changed by adding some readi