Book Fair

The New Delhi World Book Fair is organised by the NBT (National Book Trust) India. The book fair conducted here was first of the book fairs conducted in India. It was in 1972 that the first book fair was put up in Delhi from 18th March to 4th April. This book fair was held in Pragati Maidan and was inaugurated by the then President, VV Giri. This book fair has been conducted once every two years in Delhi during the month of February. The NBT is mainly responsible for improving the readership along with the publications. A unit of NBT, NCCL (National Centre for Children Literature) organises events for children thereby opening up the market for children literature.

When it comes to English publications, Indian market is the third biggest in the world. Every year, the Indian market sees around 90000 books that come from 12000 publishers. These books have been published in more than 18 Indian languages. As per the data available for 2006, the New Delhi World Book Fair was set up at a sprawling area of 38000sq.m and featured books from close to 1300 publishers. The number of visitors for this fair were around one million and visitors who came here were from more than 18 countries like US, UK, Canada, Malaysia, China, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Germany, Mauritius, Pakistan, Japan, Iran, Israel and the like.

The 2012 World Book Fair at New Delhi was held in the same reputed venue of Pragati Maidan.  The fair that was held between the period of 25th February and 4th March was inaugurated by the Minister for Human Resource Development, Kapil Sibal. During the 2012 Book Fair at Delhi, a Book Tag with a Pink Ribbon was launched to spread awareness and show support for the Indian Cancer Society. This was launched by MP, Priya Dutt, India’s Chief Election Commissioner, Dr. SY Qureshi and Sandeep Marwah. Every year, this fair hosts a specific theme and the 2012 fair celebrated hundred years of the Indian cinema industry.

The 2013 New Delhi World Book Fair was conducted between the 4th and 10th of February at Pragati Maidan. The book fair was inaugurated by the State HRD Minister, Sashi Tharoor and it was headed by the Chairman of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, Karan Singh who is also a Member of Parliament. India’s Folk and Tribal Literature was the focus of the 2013 Fair. The highlight of this event was the large number of youth who came to the fair. Almost 33% of the population comprises young people and they are also the target audience for most of the publishers as they form the majority of the readers in India. Some interesting events that were conducted during the 2013 Book Fair were an exclusive desk for counselling for kids and children, authors meeting the audience, meeting of school librarians and many more. There was a meeting of debut youth fiction writers that was held in coordination with Consortium Octet. There were lots of expert guests in this panel like Dr. Judith Oriol from the French Embassy, Janpeeth Award winner, Pratibha Ray and many more.  France was the country invited as the guest of honour for the 2013 Book Fair with the aim of increasing the readership among the Indian population. For 2014, the 22nd Book Fair will be held between 15th and 23rd February 2014 and Poland will be the guest country.