96-year-old woman appears for literacy exam in Kerala

Representational Image

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Age is just a number for 96-year-old Karthiyani Amma, who was among the 40,440 people who appeared for the literacy examination conducted by the Kerala State Literacy Mission on Sunday.

Karthiyani Amma took the examination at the Cheppad government LP school, Literacy mission sources said.

Driven by the urge to read and write, the nonagenarian had enrolled herself in the state literacy mission's 'Aksharalaksham' programme six months ago.

Eighty inmates from various prisons also wrote the examination.

A Mission press release said 11,683 people from Palakkad district appeared for the exam, in which reading, writing and mathematical abilities of the examinees are tested.

A total of 2,420 members from the schedule caste community and 946 from schedule tribe community also took up the exam.