"To mark Tagore's birth anniversary, Transport Minister Subhash Chakraborty unveiled a statue of the poet at Calcutta University's College Street campus."

The 146th birth anniversary of Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore was celebrated across West Bengal Wednesday with a special gift for the visually impaired - a Braille edition of his complete works that spread into almost all fields of literature. Celebrating the occasion, Webel MediaTronics Ltd launched a braille version of Tagore's complete works and a collection of short stories and distributed it to all 40 blind schools in the state.

'We have transcribed the complete works of Tagore and his short stories into braille version. The project was funded by non-profit organisation Media Lab Asia under the information technology department,' project head of Webel Mediatronics Sasanka Dutta told IANS. Webel Mediatronics is engaged for last 25 years in development, manufacturing and turnkey project execution in studio and broadcasting systems, information technology applications and various systems for the disabled.

Dutta said the total cost of the project was Rs.350,000 and it took almost six months to come out with the braille version. The transcription of all volumes was done through the braille transcription software. 'The complete works of Tagore was only given to the West Bengal Central Library in Kolkata where the book would be available at the braille corner of the library,' he said.

The braille version of Tagore's work was inaugurated by Information Technology Minister Debesh Das here Wednesday. To mark Tagore's birth anniversary, Transport Minister Subhash Chakraborty unveiled a statue of the poet at Calcutta University's College Street campus. The occasion was also observed with cultural activities by numerous academic institutions, including Rabindra Bharati University and Vishwa Bharati University in Shantiniketan, and numerous social organisations in the state.