Bangalore: Organised by the Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP), The National Convention on "Making India a Book Reading Society" is witnessing various luminaries from the Indian publishing, media and education world, who have converged to participate in the convention.

The chief organiser behind the event, D N Malhotra, President Emeritus, FIP, said, "India has the capabilities to emerge as a knowledge economy, which will have vast implications on the sustenance of the rapid growth the country is witnessing. We need to inculcate the habit of reading among our youth and children to enable them to take India’s success story to the next level."

The theme of the convention, which involves deliberation on ways to make India a real book reading society, FIP and the participating luminaries at the convention emphasised on promoting various channels of distribution and narrow the gap between books and readers by setting up well-equipped libraries all over the country.

These luminaries have also advocated postal charges for books to be made nominal and several book fairs to be organised all around the country.

"India is one of the top book publishing countries in the world wherein we bring out about 75,000 new books every year in 22 languages," added Malhotra.

Earlier, on a welcome note, Anand Bhushan, President, FIP, quoted writer Francis Bacon, saying, 'Reading maketh a full man'. The reading habit has to be instilled in individuals as early as possible which makes the role of parents, teachers, government, publishers, booksellers, libraries, media, writers and educationists very important and critical. He made a clarion call to all concerned to come together to remove the obstacles to make India a Book Reading Society.

The main objective of the FIP is to promote professional standards among members and provide a forum for publishers to discuss their problems at national and international levels. The FIP is affiliated to the International Publishers Association as the only representative body of Indian publishers. It also functions as the Regional Office for South Asia for the International Publishers Association.