New Delhi, Sep 1: For the next nine days, all roads for book lovers will lead to Pragati Maidan with the Delhi Book Fair opening today.
Taking a futuristic leap by putting e-books and publishing at its centrestage, the annual fair will have 253 publishers from the country and abroad, including France, US, UK, Russia, Germany, China and Pakistan.
The 18th edition of the Delhi Book Fair was inaugurated by Tejendra Khanna, Lt Governor of Delhi.
Khanna emphasised on the need to widen the genre of inspirational books in order to help youth.
He said publishers should adopt the technology keeping in mind the fast changing world and the need of the younger generation which is e-books and pocket books.
“Books are synonymous of knowledge and publishers should try their level best to ensure maximum reach of their books. E-publishing is the best way to expose the books to maximum audience and take books and knowledge beyond geographical boundaries,” he said.
Also for the first time, feature films based on novels of Indian authors will be screened at the Shakuntalam Convention Centre to mark 100 years of Indian Cinema.
The Federation of Indian Publishers said key challenge for book publishers in today's time would be to keep pace with technology and aim towards making books affordable to larger reader base.
“To move towards a society that is knowledge based we need an enabling environment by spreading awareness with the readers, government and law enforcement agencies. Key challenge would be to make books accessible and affordable to large sections of society,” Federation of Indian Publishers president Sudhir Malhotra said.
