In Ajayan's column in in The Asian Age, Not a future perfect Onam in sight, the reading -- and writing -- situation in the Indian state of Kerala is seen as undergoing big changes:
And around 40 per cent of the books read are translations which need not be of any great class and a good part of it is basically trash.I'd be curious to hear whether this is seen as an issue in other Indian areas/languages with strong literary traditions as well -- is English taking over, for better and worse ?
This has resulted in lower quality literature becoming popular and getting widely read and that is certainly not a welcome trend at all.
Coming to reader quality in Kerala, it has to be noted that there is a crisis in literature. Malayalam is no longer the dominant language in which the Malayali reads literature.