Govt to boost book festivals

hyderabad: higher education minister k ramachandra rao on sunday said the government would give more support to the organisers of book festivals for conducting them in the city. inaugurating the first hyderabad book festival at the nizam college grounds, ramachandra rao said reading habits among the people had come down due to the advances made in electronic media.people were spending more time watching tv and not giving any time for reading books, he said and added that book festivals would generate the reading habit among people. lauding the efforts of 'hyderabad and secunderabad publishers and booksellers association' for organising the book festival, he said it was for the first time that publishers and book sellers are organising a festival without a profit motive. more than 100 publishers, distributors and newspapers are participating in the festival, he added. about one lakh titles are on display. speaking on the occasion, iit coaching institute director c ramaiah said many publishers were taking the easy way out by publishing guides to make money. instead, they should encourage authors to write books which would provoke students to think, he said. he appealed to all publishers to give importance to the content of the books. ramaiah said, publishers and writers are doing injustice to the people in villages. most books published cannot be bought by them as they are costly and not written in their language. chairman,ap state council for higher education, c subba rao and secretary, department of school education, i v subba rao were also present.