Publishers shine at Delhi Book Fair

The 16th Delhi book fair ended on a positive note recently. The 9-day affair saw the participation of 250 publishers from all over the country who put up stalls at Pragati Maidan.
The best of these were awarded for excellence in display and for creating a wonderful ambience for visitors. The function was organized by India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO) and the Federation of Indian Publishers.
Subas Pani, chairman and managing director of ITPO, presented the awards to the winners.In the Hindi category, Rajpal and Sons won the gold shield with Saraswati House Pvt. Ltd bagging the silver. In the regional category, the Rampur Raza Library, which has been publishing books in Urdu, took home the gold shield while Media House that publishes titles in Malayalam won silver. In the English category, Grolier bagged gold while Rupa publishers bagged silver.
Vijay Kumar Sharma from Rupa was very happy with the award. “We put in a lot of effort this year. Writers like Anurag Mathur and Amandeep Sandhu visited our stalls where we held interactive and book signing sessions,” he said.
“People from all sections of society, cutting across all age groups visited our stall and bought books of their choice,” he also added.
In his address, Pani said that the fair met the expectations of all the stakeholders and was a resounding success. “It’s reassuring to see Delhiites buy books and that too so many of them,” he said. He also declared August 27 to September 4 as the dates for the 2011 book fair.